My Message to the STAND Leadership Team

I made this for the STAND Leadership Team, but everyone is more than welcome to see it. While I made it with that collective group in mind, I feel this way about practically all my friends in the anti-genocide movement and even many of those outside of it. I included my "transcript" but I didn't follow it strictly.

I just got an e-mail from Charlotte and it almost brought me to tears. I think it was notes from our the last o-team call I was on, it was o-team answers to what they like about me. I have been meaning to make a video for all my STAND friends and like many things I have put it off over the last 2 months. After reading this e-mail, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer.

I love you all more than you will ever know. I mentioned this at the NSC, but after my father passed away when I was 11, it always felt like I was searching for a home and this search for a second family was always behind my decision to join an organization. In college I began to join causes and do things purely out of passion for the objective.

Even though I came to STAND out of my desire to grow as a member of this movement and to have biggest impact I could in order to help end genocide, I was greeted by the warmest, most intelligent and most passionate group of my peers I think I could ever have met outside of my home chapter. You truly have become that second family I have always consciously or subconsciously looked for.

I have been blessed with the insanity of activism and because of it I have had the opportunity to organize people, plan events, raise money and advocate for causes in the past. While I had a lot left to learn and still do, when I joined STAND I had already gained a lot of invaluable experiences. STAND provided me with so much more than how to plan a successful event or lobby legislators, it provided me with a cause that I can own and that owns me. The work I did in high school and freshman year was important and I still feel a lot of passion for those causes, fighting genocide has made me feel far more empowered and fulfilled than I could ever imagine being. I know I don’t have to explain too much that fighting genocide isn’t just something I feel is important in my heart or rationalize as necessary in my mind, but a synthesis of those two urges.

I think for that reason, no matter how awkward I can be and how short of time I’ve known most of you, that I feel so strongly connected to all of you. STAND might be where we come to help end suffering in Darfur, but I believe with all of myself that STAND is where many end up finding their home. I was and would be a committed activist, but STAND has allowed me to grow up and focus my activism.

I’m rambling and eventhough I typed this out, I’m having trouble expressing what I want to express. All I can do is say thank you to all of you for becoming my friend and working together on this cause we all care deeply about. Many of you came before me and laid the groundwork, welcomed me warmly and helped retool me for this cause. Others of you joined at about the same time or after me. Thank you for being my support, my family and colleagues in this struggle. We all get frustrated, but I know together we can keep it up and that our efforts are helping, will help and will ultimately be successful.

I’ve kept in contact with most of you, but please please please do not let us venture too far away from one another. I will do my best to keep on pestering you guys from my g-chat addiction. We’ve done some amazing things together and regardless of where all end up, I’m sure our connection will continue to be one that brings about joy to one another and ideas that will change the world.