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More than a dozen Phinneywood Rising folks got together June 16 to build our first ightweight banner. For past bannering efforts, we’ve borrowed the Backbone Campaign’s signs, and while they are wonderful, they are also heavy and need to be returned to Backbone’s Vashon HQ after we are done. These new banners are lightweight, need fewer volunteers to hold steady, and can be broken down into smaller segments that will fit in nearly any car. Volunteers completed STAND UP SPEAK OUT and cut out all of the letters for the second banner, DEMOCRACY DIES IN SILENCE. Thanks to Dan for making the connection with the Tukwila folks and moving this forward.
A crew of nearly a dozen PWR members, including Liz, Dan, Dave, Jamie, Geri, Paula, LeRoy,Tyrrel and Katherine unfurled the "Defend Democracy" banner and stood it up on the Woodland Park pedestrian overpass June 3 -- the third such bannering event PWR has held. Everything was going well until a fender-bender directly below the bridge ground traffic to a halt. The crew shifted from northbound traffic to southbound traffic, then decided to call it a day. Thanks to Dave for going down to Aurora to find out more about the accident, then giving a ride home to the passengers in the taxi that was involved; they'd been stranded there by their driver. The passengers reassured Dave that bannering did not cause the crash.
A determined group of protesters continue to show up every Friday at Seattle's downtown Federal Building. "The honking and thumbs up from drivers was the most I've ever seen in the 5 or 6 Fridays I've done," Anne reports after the latest event June 6. "Definitely a change in the air!"
There was a good turnout at June 's University Village protest. Dave stood next to Joan, age 91, who took the bus to the protest and walked with the assistance of a walker. Inspiring!
The Dance4Democracy group came to the May 17 Tesla protest to lead a small group with dance moves, and a number of Phinneywood Rising folks joined in to tunes like Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Everyday People."
Wallingford Indivisible holds weekly protests in Northgate to raise awareness of the threat of cuts to Medicaid and Social Security. The protest location is near subsidized senior housing, and Geri met a 93-year-old woman at the protest who fears she'll be thrown out of her home if Medicaid cuts go into effect.
A half-dozen leaders of the Communities Rising neighborhood groups met at the Sunlight Cafe in May for coffee and note-sharing. PWR, represented at this meeting by Katherine, is the largest of the groups, with 105 members, and arguably the most organized, with weekly emails and our own website. Other groups are doing a wide variety of activites, including: writing thank-you cards to Harvard University for standing up to Trump, organizing groups of people to appear at protests, and a potential "Hands Around Green Lake" event later this fall.