Thank you.

Many of us have spent this year under siege. In our communities, we are losing more of our people to overdose, suicide, and incarceration. In our homes, the dollars we had last year aren’t worth the same this year. On our screens, we watch meanness spread like wildfire. 

Making matters worse, we find ourselves three years into a pandemic that has isolated us from the care of each other’s company.

Politics can offer little sanctuary. Endless sniping. A still widening gap between the rich and the rest of us. The attacks that come from all sides anytime someone tries to do something brave. 

Yet here we are, surviving together. For that we are grateful.

Thank you to our organizer apprentices who are charting new territory, like Shanequa Smith who co-hosted the state’s first Black Policy Day at the Capitol this year and Lill Prosperino who helped found West Virginia’s first statewide harm reduction coalition. Thank you to our Citizen Media Makers, like the folks at Mustard Seed Mountain who have launched the state’s first street newspaper, by and for houseless people.

Thank you to all the candidates who ran with courage, despite the long odds, giving the rest of us something to believe in, folks like Chuck Conner and Tess Jackson and Ryan Deems and Eric Sebert and Tony O. Martin and Rusty Williams and Red Greer and Lacy Watson. Thank you to candidates who built campaigns whose accomplishments would last beyond election day, folks like Lauren Hensley in Cabell who turned her school board campaign into a food drive and Joe Solomon who devoted a citywide mailer to educating voters about Narcan. Thank you to the candidates who fought for something greater than themselves, like Corey Zinn who gave even more to the Charleston Can’t Wait slate as a volunteer after he lost in the primary. And thank you to everyone who did brave things from which the rest of us could learn – the people who ran as independents and third party candidates, the Wood County Can’t Wait crew that shared resources across races, the people who threw themselves into municipal ballot initiatives, and the people who helped us learn how to call for a recount.

We are also grateful for all the helpers. Thank you to the Hometown Heroes who keep stepping in where government has failed, folks like Darrin Lester offering a hand up to folks returning from prison and to everyone who’s pitched in with a grassroots harm reduction program or abortion fund – reminding us that legal barriers are not insurmountable. Thank you to the mental health providers who have offered more than two dozen WV Can’t Wait leaders the free care they wouldn’t get elsewhere. Thank you to the teachers in our schools and the teachers in our movement, like the Training for Change team that built the first intensive organizing training we’ve seen in decades. And perhaps most of all, thanks to all the families and friends and volunteers who do most of the work in exchange for almost none of the credit.

We end this year with gratitude, not because the world we seek is within reach. Not because good things come easy. We are grateful not for the darkness, but for the flickers of light being carefully cupped and tended and joined by people like you.

Sincerely,

Katey & Stephen, for the WV Can’t Wait team 

WV Can't Wait is a movement to win a people's government in the Mountain State. For more information, visit wvcantwait.com.