Hi John, it’s Jackie.
Seven years ago today, I was a high school junior standing on stage with my classmates in front of hundreds of thousands of people. It was the first March For Our Lives and the largest single-day protest against gun violence in history. I’m SO proud of what we’ve achieved since then. We’ve sparked REAL change nationwide, but we can't stop now as our progress is threatened by the Trump administration's efforts to weaken gun safety laws.
My commitment to this movement is personal. I am a survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
When we started March For Our Lives, we had no idea it would turn into the powerful youth-led movement it is today. But we knew one thing for sure: we wouldn’t sit back while our leaders did nothing to address gun violence. Too many lives depended on it.
The key to our movement was speed. We acted fast, organizing students in Parkland and across the country.
Just six days after the shooting, I gathered 100 Parkland survivors and headed to the state capitol in Tallahassee—900 miles round-trip. There were just two weeks left in the state legislative session, and our mission was to get laws passed ASAP to prevent more tragedies. With an NRA-backed governor, we knew it wouldn’t be easy, but we kept pushing. Eventually we secured state legislation to raise the minimum age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21—something that, if already in place, could have prevented the shooting at our high school.
After Tallahassee it was all hands on deck to organize the March For Our Lives. There were many sleepless nights, thousands of text messages, and meetings with politicians and celebrities alike.
The morning of the March, Washington, DC was buzzing with energy. We were nervous but excited. We finalized our speeches, got up on that stage, and shouted ENOUGH! We demanded what kids across the country deserved: action.
And action we got. What started with that single moment on stage turned into a movement. We’ve gone on to register hundreds of thousands of voters, broken youth-voter turnout, helped pass over 300 gun safety laws, and secured the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention to help survivors and prevent tragedies from happening in the first place.
Today, this progress is at risk. The Trump administration has already signaled its intent to weaken gun laws and cater to the gun lobby. We refuse to let that happen.
Thank you for all that you do. We couldn’t do this without you,
Jackie 💙
Co-founder, March For Our Lives
|
Your Personal Invite To the Movement Fund 💌💙 At March For Our Lives, we call our monthly supporter program The Movement Fund. Why are monthly recurring donors so important? The amount of one-time individual donations we receive as an organization varies vastly from month to month. Without a steady stream of monthly donations coming in our door, it would be impossible to accurately plan our budgets, create long-term strategies to win a future free from gun violence, plan and execute on-the-ground organizing efforts, recruit and train more gun safety champions, and more. |
