Peace and Justice

Last month Manny Pintado attended the Jobs for Justice annual conference in Washington DC. On the school scene, he reported hedgefund managers are undermining public education by funding only charter schools. They're also donating to colleges huge sums of money with strings attached, to influence the course material. On the  work front, only 13% of US jobs are now unionized. Many workers can earn only the federal minimum wage -- $7.25/ hour --with no benefits, and an irregular schedule. On March 8 we co-sponsored an International Woman's Day celebration in Lyman Hall. The group honored several women from different parts of MA who are organizing against the Kinder-Morgan pipeline, a 30” diameter pipe running from the fracked-gas fields of PA to the coast, for export, contaminating whatever it touches, including MA protected forest land.  Also receiving an award was P&J [...]

    "Stunning." "Remarkable." "Unbelievable." "SO powerful and moving!" We heard these words again and again, as hundreds of people came to journey through the FLIGHT installation this past week. Thank you, thank you so much to artists Robin Brooks, Martha Brouwer, Harriet Diamond, Mary Frongillo, Laura Iveson, Phyllis Labanowski, Catherine Linberg, Mona Shiber, Rochelle Shicoff, Naomi Tannen, Denie Whalen, refugee women from Burundi and refugee youth from Bhutan for creating fabulous, powerful, provocative art and for all the ways they offered their time and energy to making the show happen. And to the many other behind-the-scenes folks, equally as important to making the show happen, who showed up and did the grunt work so graciously. None of this could have been possible without the wonderful support of the members, pastors and staff of First Churches, who gave over Lyman Hall during [...]