This past year the League of Women Voters of Amherst was proud to give out a total of $4,000 to two different local initiatives. Amherst Regional Public Schools teacher Tim Austin received a grant for The Civic Literacy and Organizing Project to partner with hip-hop musician, teacher, activist and author Tem Blessed. The work that Tem, Tim and his co-teachers did was well covered in the Daily Hampshire Gazette and it is clear the students learned a tremendous amount.

The second grant was to Creative Collective for Issue Advocacy, which is using the LWVA funds to produce 30-second video PSAs targeted to western Mass. college campuses. This nonpartisan project will involve short interviews with high school history teachers talking about the importance of voting and how it feels knowing that former students of theirs are considering sitting out the election; new citizens talking about the experience of voting as Americans for the first time; and refugees from non-democracies talking about the privilege of voting in free and fair elections.

I strongly encourage local groups (Amherst and surrounding towns) who are working on local civic projects to apply for 2024-25 funding. The application can be found online at lwvamherst.org/civic-action-grants.

Rebecca Fricke

Amherst