John, it’s brutal out here.

Every day, there’s a new headline about an unhinged head of state jonesing for war, a new clip of a homegrown Nazi and elected official buddying up, or another bleak climate report reminding us that the world is on fire. Fossil fuel executives are buying their third vacation home while our families struggle to stay safe and healthy. Billionaires are chartering private flights to the moon while our friends scrape together side hustles to make the rent. Some days, it really feels like we are watching the world fall apart.

Politicians tell us to stop complaining and just vote. They tell us to wait another four years. They tell us that they are better than the other guys, that real change takes time and hey, maybe not all that much needs to change anyway.

Everywhere you look, there are young people screaming that this isn’t the way things should be, while every adult in the room seems to be sending the same message: sorry, this is just the way it is.

But their cynicism is a death sentence, and if we want a shot at a safe and stable future, we cannot accept it.

So in order to take on these challenges, we’re getting ready to launch the next five years of Sunrise — Sunrise 2.0. Right now, we’re in the process of finalizing our plan, then the movement is going to vote on it and we're going to relaunch later this year. But here’s the thing, John: how big we can go depends on the resources we have.

There will be many ways for you to help build this movement in the coming months. But one thing we need right now is the money and resources to grow the work. Will you donate $10 so we can support our hubs and volunteer leaders through the next phase of Sunrise?

Contribute $10

Instead of believing the establishment when they say this is how the world works, we must rally the millions of young people who believe we can build a better one. We have a mission to build a country that runs on renewable energy, where anyone can get a good paying job and our kids won’t live in fear of the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We can’t let them talk us out of it.

In the next phase of our movement — Sunrise 2.0 — we need to get serious about taking over the halls of power and building people power in every part of the country. That way no matter what happens in DC in the next two or four years, we're getting closer and closer to winning a Green New Deal from the bottom up.

This is going to require new types of organizing, creativity and leadership. The plans for the next phase of our movement can’t come from mass calls, Slack posts, or even emails like this one. We’re going to need hundreds of leaders on the ground who are figuring out how to localize the vision of the Green New Deal and get their communities on board. If it’s going to work we need thousands of young people stepping up, experimenting and joining the work of learning and growing together.

So John, that’s what we’re asking you right now: can you donate $10 today so we can continue to support our hubs in doing the most powerful work possible?

If we do this, we can build the kind of people power that can’t be held back by the whims of rich men in Washington DC. We can be the generation that ends the fossil fuel era, creates millions of good union jobs, and invests in the safety and wellbeing of all people.

Let’s be the generation. Let’s take over.

In solidarity,

Dejah