From NOVA Climate and 350 Fairfax, looks like an excellent event!
Third Annual Mother’s Day Climate Rally Features Youth Climate Leader Alexandria Villaseñor
April 15, 2019– The third annual Mother’s Day Climate Rally, featuring a keynote from youth climate leader Alexandria Villaseñor, gives NOVA residents a place to come together and rally for our kids’ right to a healthy, clean-energy future. This family-oriented event features great music, inspiring speakers and fun kids’ activities. The 2019 rally will be held Sunday, May 5th – one week before Mother’s Day – from 2:00-3:30 p.m. at Veterans Amphitheater outside Fairfax City Hall.
The rally celebrates the powerful youth climate movement, highlighted by keynote speaker Alexandria Villaseñor. 13-year-old Villaseñor, inspired by Swedish youth climate leader Greta Thunberg, began her New York park-bench school strike on Fridays in front of the United Nations headquarters. In early 2019, she joined with fellow school strikers Isra Hirsi and Haven Coleman as co-leaders of US Youth Climate Strike. Together they mobilized the U.S. arm of the 1.6 million-strong school strike that spread across 123 countries on March 15, 2019. Villaseñor has become one of the key faces of the youth climate movement; featured in the media from the Washington Post and National Geographic to Teen Vogue.
The theme of the 2019 Climate Rally is the Virginia Green New Deal. Virginia Delegate Elizabeth Guzman, patron of Virginia Green New Deal Resolution, will talk about how the Virginia Green New Deal will help transition Virginia to a clean, renewable energy future for our kids.
Additional speakers include: Kristin Hogue, graduate student in climate studies at Columbia University, and mother of Alexandria Villaseñor, on parenting a young climate activist; Mitra Kashani, GMU student environmental leader and Sunrise Movement activist; Virginia State Senator Chap Petersen, chief patron of the bill to ban campaign contributions from Dominion Power; and Oakton High School student Wendy Gao, speaking about the Solar on Our Schools campaign to equip all Fairfax County Public Schools with solar panels.
In addition, the event will feature music from M4TR, a social justice indie rock band, tables with information and volunteer opportunities run by many Northern VA climate action groups, and kids’ activities including face painting and chalk art.
About the Mother’s Day Climate Rally: Mother’s Day has its origins in the Mother’s Day Proclamation, written in 1870 by abolitionist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe. In the wake of the civil war, Howe sought to mobilize mothers around the world to protect future generations of children by outlawing war. The Mother’s Day Climate Rally renews the holiday’s activist spirit by mobilizing people to act on the most pressing issue of our time, climate change.
The Third Annual Mother’s Day Rally will be the largest gathering of climate and social justice groups in Northern Virginia in 2019. Co-sponsors include: 350 Alexandria; 350 Fairfax; 350 Loudoun; Chesapeake Climate Action Network; Climate Reality Project—NOVA chapter; Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions; Food & Water Watch; Greater Prince William Climate Action Network; Green Muslims; Herndon-Reston Indivisible; Moms Clean Air Force; Mothers Out Front; Network NOVA; NOVA Climate; Our Revolution—Alexandria; Our Revolution—Arlington; Our Revolution—Northern Virginia; Sierra Club – Virginia Chapter; Sierra Club – Great Falls Group; Virginia Student Environmental Coalition—GMU chapter.
Sunday, May 5, 2019, 2pm – 3:30 pm. Veterans Amphitheater, 10455 Armstrong Street, Fairfax, VA 22030. For more information, please visit NOVAclimate.org, or get directions, details and RSVP here.
Sign up for the Blue Virginia weekly newsletter
