Tomorrow, we’re going to ask you to think about 2020 and make a plan for how you can commit (or recommit!) to activism in what is likely to be the most pivotal election year in our lifetimes. Today, however, we want to invite you to look back at 2019 and think about the impacts of your actions. We think every action you take in the world to influence the outcomes of the policies you care about is important, no matter how large or small those actions might be. Marching, protesting, and showing up to legislative committee hearings are undeniably crucial, but making phone calls and sending emails to your elected officials is also a necessary part of the process. Don’t discount the value you add to the causes you care about just because you can’t do everything.

First, what were some of the positive impacts your work in 2019 helped to create? Pick one or two things you are especially proud of, and write a few sentences about them: telling our elected officials to impeach and remove Donald Trump, helping to protect members of our community from ICE, and removing barriers to Washingtonians voting by helping to pass a bill providing prepaid postage for all election ballots, among the other more than 300 actions you took over the past year.

Second, share this post (if you’re reading it on Facebook) or forward along this message (if you’re reading it in your email), and tell your friends and family about the positive impacts that you chose to write about.

It’s critical that we all take stock of the good that we have helped to create in the world, and it’s just as critical that we show our friends and family how they can help do the same!

In our thoughts: John Lewis

News broke on Sunday that Representative John Lewis, one of the pillars of the civil rights movement, is fighting stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Please keep him in your thoughts in the days to come.

http://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/politics/rep-john-lewis-pancreatic-cancer.html