20250311 STAND Newsletter – Our first post!
Good Evening, Everyone!
I don’t know about you, but I'm having a hard time believing that it has only been a week since we sat down together for our first STAND together event. I’ve had some more time to reflect on that night, and I am even amazed at what you all came together and accomplished. It was truly inspiring to see a group of people who didn’t know each other well (yet!) come together and share a bit of themselves in community and provide support to their neighbors.
We have fed on that inspiration, and the engine of this movement is rumbling to life. The night we came together, four teams were born: STAND together, STAND communications, STAND support, and STAND protest. All four require leadership, direction, coordination, and volunteers dedicated to both the individual missions and the larger movement. We are pleased to announce that we have identified initial leadership across all 4 teams, and are in the process of developing guiding documents and building infrastructure across the board.
What does that mean for you? It means we are rapidly developing the ability for you to plug into these teams to begin doing meaningful work to help support and shape our community. In the coming weeks, we will be providing clear guidance on the missions (and opportunities for involvement) of these teams, and reaching out to you directly based on your indicated preferences to see how we can both support you and also make use of your gifts and talents. Due to a number of requests, we will start with STAND Communications where we have outlined 4 squads critical to the success of our movement. Take a look at the attached overview, and be on the lookout for follow up from team leadership in the coming weeks!
Lastly, many of you have asked when we will be holding our next community event. The answer is soon! On Saturday, March 22nd, we will be hosting another meeting at NDUMC (flyer attached) from 10am until 1pm. Food will be available from 10am-11:30am, with our general meeting starting at 11:30am. Beyond the community building that made our first meeting so successful, we are also beginning to pivot towards directed action. For those that are interested, we will be hosting a seminar on how to file freedom of information act (FOIA) requests starting at 10:30am. Frustrated by a lack of accountability at DOGE? Want to support your laid-off CDC and federal employee neighbors? We have a tool for you. Please respond to this email if you need childcare to attend so we can make sure we have people on hand to support you.
Please, join us again to continue breathing life into a movement centered in kindness, dignity, respect, and advocacy. Reach out to people that you know are in need of support, and please bring them along. We are building something great here, and we need your help to do it. I hope you have found some peace in the past week, and on behalf of Josh, Nanci, and myself, we’re looking forward to seeing you all again soon.
STANDing together with you,
Matt
