To the Editor
My name is Keith Chatinover, and I am a senior at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School. I helped plan a trip to Washington, D.C., to join the March for Our Lives on March 24.
The support of our Island and Cape Cod communities made this trip possible. To the dozens of community members, Islanders and otherwise, who donated what they could so that two busloads of Islanders and Cape Codders, a large majority of whom were students and young adults, could drive through the night to be a part of the event, thank you. But the support was so much more than just the financial contributions.
To MV Screenprinting, which gave us a massive discount so that we could all have shirts for the trip: Thank you. And to Hillary Noyes-Keene, a parent of a student on the trip, who arranged the purchase and distribution of the shirts, and raised the funds to cover the decreased-price shirts: thank you.
To the owner of Herring Run Kitchen, who pulled up to the Steamship terminal on Friday night with bags upon bags of brownies, scones, and cookies that I can say firsthand made for a hearty Saturday morning breakfast (and afternoon snack): Thank you.
To the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center, which not only served as a collection hot spot for perhaps a dozen cases of water, snacks, blankets, and pillows, but provided us handmade signs from Hebrew school students that read in colorful handwriting, “Protect Kids, Not Guns”: Thank you.
To the loyal group of adult activists on the Island who saw us off on Friday night, who be can be seen at All-Island School Committee meetings or Eversource standouts: Thank you.
And to the students and adults who eagerly and courageously went on this journey with me, entrusting their safety to an 18-year-old optimist, I say thank you, and that it was a real pleasure to travel with you.
I have a final request. Please, whether you’re in elementary school or lived through the anti-Vietnam protests, stay engaged. Register to vote. Educate yourselves on the positions of every candidate for every position in every election. Not only do their positions matter, but some of those officials go on to become influential power brokers.
You think county clerks don’t matter? One county clerk who began his job in 1973 is now the third highest beneficiary of National Rifle Association donations in Congress, having received over $4.5 million in contributions from the NRA. His name is Roy Blunt, No. 5 in the GOP Senate leadership.
And, please, stay engaged in politics. Get out and vote. Democracy isn’t a spectator sport. Your vote matters. In addition to voting, work to preregister young adults. Encourage your friends of age to register to vote and remain involved. We cannot be a part of the movement if we don’t elect leaders of that movement to political office. And if you don’t think that anyone from our youth movement is running for an office, run for it yourself.
And, finally, to the Parkland students who organized this event, and to the young people across this country who have dealt with more conflict than I can ever imagine, and yet still find a way to be unimaginably strong leaders in their communities: Thank you. We are with you, and you can count on us to be a part of this movement for years and generations to come.
#enough
Keith Chatinover
Edgartown
