Making Our Voices Heard

Who would have thought that Ian and I would take the boys for some weekend fun at a protest rally? Well, a few weekends ago that's exactly what we did.

For a few years now, we've been members of a great and very active church-The Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.  We really get along with the people and have enjoyed getting involved in a community.  Ian works as a visitor host and I teach third and fourth grade Sunday school.  The boys go to their respective Sunday school classes and are learning a lot and meeting some new buddies their own age.  We even went camping with the parents group last fall.

Well, as I said, they are very active in the community.  So, when the state legislature started implementing some policies that they didn't agree with, they were some of the first to make their voices heard.  When the "Historic Thousands on Jones Street" rally was planned to protest some of these policies, our church was a big part of it.  There were several of the issues that Ian and I felt particularly strongly about so we decided we would add our voices to the crowd that was heading out for the rally. We would not be the only ones, there were predicted to be up to 50 thousand people heading out.

So, Ian and I decided what we wanted to do, but we didn't know whether we wanted to take the boys. We finally decided that it would be something that the boys could really benefit from.  What could be better than seeing people out in force standing up for what they believe in-peacefully trying to change laws.  It's what our country is based on.

That morning, we packed about a million snacks per boy and headed out.  We knew there would be thousands of people out there so we had no idea what the logistics would be.  Turns out it worked out beautifully.  We parked close by, met up with the people from our church and started marching to the state capital.  I was definitely glad that we went to make our voices heard and hopefully it will make progress to changing some of the laws in this state.

As for the kiddos, they stayed fairly happy.  For Benny, I don't know that he really figured out what all those people were doing out there, but we told Evan what was going on and I think he soaked it in a little.  Whether they remember every detail or not, they will still start to form beliefs that people should stand up for what they feel passionate about and can make a difference.

(Here we got to the capitol.)

(some of the crowds watching the scene)

(my marchers)