Hi John,

I’m Iris Zhan. I’m a high school sophomore from Columbia, MD, and I’m one of 1,500 people who’ve already signed up to host Sunrise 2020 launch parties later this month. I’ll be hosting mine in my basement at home with a group of friends who I want on my team as we get ready to take on this scary but exciting new year.

Will you host a launch party, too? In order to win big in 2020, we need our movement to reach as many people as possible. And that starts with you, reaching out to a few friends.

Here’s who I’m inviting to my party: My friend Chloe from my AP Government class, Claire H and Claire F from my Green Initiative club, my friend Allie from stage crew, and my friend Elena. These aren’t necessarily people who already consider themselves activists or environmentalists--they’re just friends who I want to bring into the Sunrise community and have by my side this year as we fight for our futures.

What happens this election year will define the rest of this decade. And if we go all-in, we could make this the decade of the Green New Deal. But to get there, there’s so much work to do, and our movement needs to grow a lot.

That’s why I think it’s so important right now to build a team of friends who can work together with me in this movement over the coming year--and hosting a launch party is the way to do it.

Even if you’re new to Sunrise or have never hosted any kind of event before, that’s ok. Last year, I hosted a Sunrise watch party without any experience doing this kind of thing. I was nervous, but Sunrise gave me a lot of resources and support, and my party was a success. The friends who I invited got really excited about Sunrise, and together we ended up starting the Sunrise Howard County Hub.

Who are the five friends you’d invite to your launch party? If you can think of even a few people, that’s all you need to host--Sunrise will guide you through the rest.

Let’s start this year off right, by building the community we need to win. Because together, we’re unstoppable.

Iris Zhan