Interested in the Northern California Hospital And Institution Committee? Learn more about the scope of Northern California Hospital and Institution Committee and its collaboration with Alcoholics Anonymous…
The esteemed Hospital and Institution Committee of Northern California is a committee for Alcoholics Anonymous. The aim of this committee is to spread the message of Alcoholics Anonymous through prisons, hospitals, and other institutions that have no means of making contact with Alcoholics Anonymous. People that are being held in incarceration, like prisons, might not have access to Alcoholics Anonymous and this institution is designed to help them.
Under the progressing Fellowship membership, the committee has grown rapidly. Today, Northern California Hospital and Institution Committee is active in 46 areas and 12 Regions. It services small localities like a county jail and detox facility and large groups containing more than a hundred members. Meetings are scheduled in around 40 or more facilities.
There are more than 800 meetings organized by the exceptionally successful Northern California H & I committee. These are organized on a weekly basis in state and federal institutions across California. People who cannot purchase Alcoholics Anonymous literature are provided literature by volunteers and workers of the Northern California Hospital and Institution Committee.
They utilize the pink can to collect funds to support the printing of literature. Their annual budget for printed material goes up to $460,000 under the Alcoholics Anonymous world services. Conversely it costs $45,000 for the Alcoholics Anonymous Grapevine material to be printed in both Spanish and English.
The committee is consistently involved in printing, storage and shipping. They also take care of the postage cost of distribution of the tapes and literature. They also distribute Grapevines to the entire region and Northern California. The present budget just allows one book and a few handfuls of pamphlets in each meeting, which is not adequate for all of the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting groups.
Therefore, the assistance provided by the Northern California Hospital & Institution Committee over the last few decades has been the largest source of funding. This Institute purchases the maximum amount of literature from Alcoholics Anonymous. It adds a large amount to the income generated by this committee.
Concerns over the Pink Cans
When the pink cans were introduced, there was a lot of concern expressed over the fact that support for the group would fall. The concern was that more of the members would contribute to the larger good of printing of the literature, thereby undermining the donations received for their own groups. However Alcoholic Anonymous secretaries are supposed to announce the importance of supporting the group. This builds upon supporting the service. As a subsequent assistance, you can contribute to printing the literature and further strengthen the objective of the Pink Can. Therefore, the baskets for group support donations and the Pink Cans are circulated independently and there is no confusion in terms of their objectives. This ends up creating a self-supporting group of members without violating any of the Alcoholics Anonymous traditions. All of the H&I members are volunteers and they pass on the message regardless of the distance.
