Hello my friends,
Happy Thanksgiving weekend! I hope you are able to spend this weekend in a way that is nourishing and restorative, whatever that looks like for you. I have been able to see family, paint just for fun, and rest, which are all things that I need right now.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Black Friday and all the other days that are following - Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. I have also been thinking a lot about the two recent mass shootings, and the number of shootings before those, and all the ones before those. While there are a few causes I have aligned my sales with in the past, gun safety, or lack thereof, is on my mind at the moment.
I was in high school in 1999 when Columbine happened, and as most of you know I am currently an educator by day. I dread the annual Run, Hide, Defend drills, both for my adult peers and me, and also for our students. In the last couple of years I watched a large black gate go up around my school’s (and others’) beautiful, open campus, and heard students say how it felt like a prison. It’s there to keep them safe from outside intruders, and they understand that, and so do I. But it’s also a daily reminder that there are people in our country who have access to guns and often use them to harm large groups of people, and sometimes those people are young. And marginalized.
I’m not a parent (by choice), but I have always considered my students (present and former) to be my kids, which is why so many causes are so close to me. In the past I have raised money for The Trevor Project, for example, because of their focus on supporting LGBTQ+ youth. For this weekend though, I am donating 10% of every sale to Moms Demand Action, which is an organization that is working toward gun safety and gun sense laws in America. They have chapters all over the country, and they educate and train citizens to speak to their elected leaders to take gun issues seriously and take appropriate action to make our society safer. The organization was started by moms, but welcomes dads, educators, and any other citizen who is willing to learn and take action. Supporting a cause like this is a way to support kids like mine and yours.
Take care,
Sarah