John,
As I headed into work today, it was with a heavy heart, thinking about the pervasiveness of hate, supremacy, and gun violence. As you know, just this last week I lost a 12th student to gun violence right here in IL-07.
That’s 12 students I’ve lost to gun violence in just 10 years of teaching in this district.
As adults, we ourselves have difficulty dealing with trauma, so imagine what our youth are experiencing.
We can’t afford to be daunted by the challenges in this district and the task ahead—to ensure true representation in Congress by people like you and me. It’s literally a matter of life and death, as I can tell you from personal experience and as far too many people of IL-07 can tell you.
We must do everything possible to end the preventable traumas our young people face. For me, that means running a 100% grassroots campaign in which I’m pounding the pavement of this district every week, getting to know the people who live here, the challenges they face, and the solutions we can work toward.