May 5, 2025

Dear Kent Streeters,

Sometimes organizing means pivoting on a dime…or in this case, pivoting because of rain! Lots of rain! That’s what’s in the forecast for tomorrow, May 6, when the Senate will be holding its public hearing on the state budget. We’ve been urging everyone to to attend the Fight for Our Future rally from noon to 1 and stay on for the hearing afterwards. We need to tell the Senate all the ways this cruel and fiscally irresponsible budget will damage lives, communities and our state.

That call to action has not changed!
We still need you to show up tomorrow (May 6) at the State House!
All events will be inside!

What has changed is how we are showing up. 

We are moving everything indoors, adding a press conference, and encouraging folks to line the halls of the State House with their signs. We will have tents set up outside the State House directing folks where to go. We’ll have signs and sign-making materials and info on how best to share your budget story, before and after the hearing.

So please make sure to join us if you can…either in person or see below for how to raise your voice from afar!

This weekend I was fortunate to attend the “We Exist” concert performed at St. Paul’s Church by the Concord Chorale. The choir, the orchestra, the soloists and the director performed brilliantly and flawlessly with a passion that gave life to the music as it echoed through the church. 

It seemed every word sung and every note played were made for our times, embracing us in compassion, calling us to kindness, urging us to courage, affirming that all belong – and reminding us that it is in community where we find our shared resoluteness and our power to change the world for good.  The concert was a true gift to all present, but also to the broader community as I am sure it’s rippling effects will move out from that space in the form of renewed commitment and inspiration in those who attended.

Though I can’t repeat the beautiful performance here, I can share just a few of the words from a piece  “We Exist” with lyrics by Naseem Rakha and score by Oliver Caplan:

It begins with one
A hundred
A thousand
A hundred thousand
A million

A multitude of murmuring humans
Old young dark light
All faiths
All genders
All races

We exist not to divide but to join
Not to blame but to build
Not to surrender but to lift up our arms
A savant wave of wings
flying upward and onward and forward
beyond today.

It begins with you.

And to these words, I humbly add that it begins with us.

With eyes on the prize,

Louise