Folks, here's a sample release that you can adapt for your town.  Simplest thing, just cut and paste from the screen.  I did it just now, pasted it into WordPad.  It came out a bit funky, but you need to massage it anyway, with local contacts, dates, times, places, etc.  Thanks so much for your support.

        Abrazos, Daniel the Webster

P.S.  If you can use MSWord documents, to download the file Gerry sent me, click here: Sample Press Release


SAMPLE PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                            contact: [contact person, tel. #]
[Today's Date]                                                                     [other contact person, info]

U.S. NURSE, HUMAN RIGHTS HEROINE IN NICARAGUA, TO VISIT [your town]

Dorothy Granada, an internationally acclaimed health promoter and human rights activist, will visit [NAME OF CITY] on [DATE] to meet with local supporters of her work with the rural poor in Nicaragua. For 12 years Ms. Granada has served as director of a women’s health clinic in Mulukukú, Nicaragua. She is the 1997 recipient of the International Pfeffer Peace Prize.

Dorothy Granada is widely known and loved in Nicaragua, in part for her courageous resistance to government persecution. During the last year the 70-year-old nurse successfully resisted illegal attempts to deport her from Nicaragua and close down the Women’s Clinic in Mulukukú. Human rights groups in Nicaragua and worldwide rallied to her defense in the face of persecution by the president of Nicaragua himself, Arnoldo Alemán. President Alemán accused Granada of performing
abortions, which are illegal in Nicaragua, and of serving only members of the opposition Sandinista Party, charges she has consistently denied. In December of last year, he ordered Ms. Granada deported without a hearing, forcing her to go into hiding for two months while lawyers and human rights groups came to her defense.

Nicaraguan courts found no basis to the charges against Granada. Even leaders of Alemán’s own Liberal Constitutionalist Party have called for an end to his persecution of the popular nurse. Some of those same leaders have accused Alemán of being the most corrupt president in Nicaragua’s history. November elections are expected to bring a new government. Although Alemán’s Liberals are contending with the leftist Sandinista Party, he himself is constitutionally barred from running at this time. Even so, Alemán has not given up his attempts to expel Granada from Nicaragua. Most recently he has indicated that her Nicaraguan residency permit, which expires on September 9, will not be renewed. But Dr. Nelson Artola, president of the Human Rights Commission of the Nicaraguan National Assembly has filed a complaint in defense of Granada before the Interamerican Commission of Human Rights, part of the Organization of American States (OAS). There is even an effort in the National Assembly to grant Nicaraguan citizenship to Dorothy Granada.

"My crime has been to combat malaria …"

"What I have done is to serve 30,000 campesinos from Mulukukú with medical assistance during the 12 years I have been here. My crime has been to combat malaria, tuberculosis, diarrhea and malnutrition which the campesinos suffer from and which are not treated in any way on the part of the government," said Dorothy Granada. I have not harmed the President of the Republic or any official of this government and I don’t know where all this hatred comes from."

Granada is also a Clinical Instructor at the University of Texas medical branch’s Department of Family Medicine in Galveston. Every year the University sends down a large medical delegation to provide medical, dental and other needed health services.

The Women’s Clinic in Mulukukú is part of a cooperative organized by women in 1998. There is a carpentry workshop and health education is also provided. The coop has played a leading role in educating women about their rights and protecting them from abuse. The clinic focuses largely on prenatal care, childbirth, and children’s health. It also focuses on early detection and treatment of cervical cancer. The clinic depends on people in the U.S. to provide ongoing funding for its vital
work in Nicaragua.

QUOTE BY LOCAL ORGANIZER: "We are so pleased that Dorothy Granada is coming to visit us," said ___________________, who is coordinating Granada’s local schedule. I have been to Mulukukú and I have seen this wonderful clinic and how important it is to the people there. Everyone in our community is invited to meet this remarkable woman and to learn about her inspiring work in Nicaragua."

EVENT DETAILS [some of these should probably also in the first paragraph]