Inspiration!
We require inspirational attitudes in others to spread around preferred qualities in the rest of us.
Inspiration was in view with selection of Jose Martinez as the Aurora Independence Day grand marshal. See article here. The East Aurora head wrestling coach did not hesitate to save a life in a burning car.
Inspiration remains with the group from Parkland, Fla. whose fervor after the February 14 shooting at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School and after the March 24 national March For Our Lives continues relatively unabated.
Carter Crane/The Voice
The Parkland students were part of a two-hour community conversation Saturday with Downers Grove North High School students at the DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church at the north end of Naperville. More than 200 packed the nave of the church and approximately 75 sat in the library outside of the nave and saw the proceedings on a video screen. Repeated applause was evident. The evening was intense and casual at the same time.
Inspiration is evident in Regina Brent, president and founder of the Unity Partnership organization which seeks community members to meet with law enforcements to maintain a dialogue and to build relationships. She holds conferences nearly every month. Decreasing violence is the aim and learning to live together is the by-product. She will hold a community dialogue at Metea Valley High School in Aurora at 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 4.
Ms Brent was vitally interested in the evening at DuPage U.U. Saturday. “I hope these students continue to keep the conversation down the middle,” she said.
Down the middle is important because so many who view such proceedings as a political arm of one organization or another. There was one political observer on television early in the students’ organizational situation after the February 14 shooting in Florida who dismissed the students as so much political rhetoric with no staying power. Teenagers are not interested in such matters he said dismissively with the claim fun and frolic only are on their minds.
Turns out he was way off the mark.
The students from Downers Grove North and from Parkland Saturday were typical teenagers in attitudes, styles, and talk, to a point, however, their dedication to the changing the tide of society was evident. Completely. They reflected inspiration, even if with a touch of expected idealism.
The traveling Parkland group has 30 in number. Five were among the 17 panelists who sat in a semicircle in the sanctuary at the DuPage U.U. Saturday and some had been to St. Sabina Church in Chicago Friday. They were in Chicago Saturday afternoon to register voters.
Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corina, and David Hogg were in the Parkland group Saturday. Click on June 7 issue and June 14 issue articles for a two-part series. The group’s journey will last 15 days with stops in 25 to 30 places, all by bus and will end July 6. There will be two more trips this Summer, one to the West Coast and one to the East Coast. The Parkland group’s next stop was in Ferguson, Mo. and will continue west and north.
Hogg spoke with reporters, students, and visitors and willingly agreed to an endless round of selfies and autographs. The important thing is to stand up for what you believe and in voter registration he said. “We want just and honest public officials,” he said.
Emily Gormak of Downers Grove North High School was in the semicircle of 17. She and her DGN classmates came together in the spirit of change and wore T-shirts which read “Road to Change”. They raised more than $1,700. to donate to the Parkland group. She will be a freshman in the Fall semester at the University of Louisville and has been inspired.