What a week! Thanks to our incredible partners, this year’s Giving Tuesday is proving to be one of our most successful ever (yes, generous contributions are still rolling in, and, yes, if you have not yet done so, you can still make a tax-deductible donation that will count toward our $16,000 goal).
Thanks also to those who sent encouraging messages of support as I traveled to Washington, D.C. As you might recall, National Right to Life invited me to brief Congress members and their staff about our state government’s ongoing efforts to disparage pregnancy resource centers.
What I noticed among attendees as I spoke: raised eyebrows, heads shaking and dismay. Conversations afterward reflected not just empathy but a sincere and determined willingness to help, somehow, at the federal level.
What I heard on Capitol Hill, the eagerness, hope and cautious optimism in policy makers’ remarks, matched the signs of new beginnings I saw as I walked the corridors of the Longworth House Office Building – moving boxes stacked outside half-empty suites; furnishings piled on the marble floors and lined up against the walls; dollies and hand trucks; printers and office supplies uprooted from where they’d been stationed until November 5.
For many on Capitol Hill, it’s time to move.
The quintessentially American scene literally in the Capitol building’s shadow, dusty and gritty democracy, stunningly brilliant and consequential, only reinforced the importance of what we are about to undertake at Massachusetts Citizens for Life (MCFL). Our grassroots, person-to-person initiative to systematically engage with and convert constituents in each of the160 legislative districts throughout the coming year will likewise include dusty challenges and require heavy doses of grit.
It’s time for us to move, too.
Last weekend, I described one of our main priorities for 2025. It's centered on dynamic grassroots activism, which fuels Massachusetts Citizens for Life, just as it has since our founding in 1973. Ask veteran pro-life advocates today how to build a culture of life, and they will all advise a similar approach: each one of us must work to change the hearts and minds of individuals around us. It's a daunting task, to be sure. But we developed a long-term strategy we believe holds tremendous potential. Once again, here's how we'll launch the short-term component, the first phase, if you will.
MCFL is raising money for an exciting, promising, first-of-its-kind endeavor: Pro Life Hearts & Minds Kits for each of the Commonwealth's 160 legislative districts.
Over the next several months, we will recruit and begin to train 160 district ambassadors. These volunteers, who know their respective communities best, will, in turn, inform and mobilize other pro-life advocates through ongoing targeted and hyper-local efforts. With your support, MCFL will provide and deploy the resources, the Pro-Life Hearts & Minds Kits.
Among other items, each Hearts & Minds Kit will include a step-by-step community outreach plan, communications templates, suggested digital messaging, fact sheets, educational content and an event planning guide.
Our vision is that, ultimately, once ambassadors within each legislative district begin to inform others and build teams of pro-life advocates -- grassroots activism at its most powerful -- a blanket of pro-life voices will cover our state and demand that legislators listen.
Our Giving Tuesday goal was to raise $100 for each district, for a total of $16,000. These inaugural funds brought in during Phase I will allow our ambassadors to kickstart their mobilization efforts, changing hearts and minds soon thereafter. We can absolutely still reach our goal, but we need just a little help to get there. Please support this effort today by making your most generous gift and help us reach our $16,000 goal. Your gift is tax deductible.
Help us with the move, across the Commonwealth and across differences. Lives depend on it.
Thank you for partnering with MCFL in this historic undertaking! We will share updates and photos as our ambassador program unfolds. But we need funds to be successful. Your support will allow that success!
Enjoy your weekend,
Myrna