Maryland woman makes one shell of a statement
Disapproval of alt-facts White House leads teacher to create alt-eggs for Easter
WASHINGTON He’s a force, a fundraiser like they’ve never seen before.
In one weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump helped raise $24 million for the American Civil Liberties Union, right after it took a stand against his proposed travel ban in February.
Other progressive non-profits — Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch, the Natural Resources Defense Council, even the tiny, D.C.-based La Clinica del Pueblo — have all seen big spikes in fundraising from people eager to protest Trump’s policies.
He hasn’t only inspired folks to open their wallets, he’s also helped raise a small army of newbie activists. Folks like English teacher Natalie Rebetsky, who never thought of herself as a political person or partisan activist. Until now.
Before Trump, Rebetsky was known as the colourful chair of the English department at Linganore High School in Frederick, Md., whose only involvement with the White House was a mild obsession with the annual White House Easter Egg roll — the largest annual public event at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., with 35,000 people attending last year.
She has almost two dozen commemorative White House Easter eggs on display in her kitchen.
When her kids were little, she’d wake them up before dawn, get them in their Easter best and drive them to the White House.
There, they’d wait hours to get through the gates to the South Lawn for the Easter Egg roll.
“And you get there, and it’s magical. We were always in awe, to be at the White House,” she said.
Year after year they did it, and each year she loved adding whatever colourful wooden egg the White House designed to commemorate the event. Pastels, primary colours. Elaborate, minimalist. Republican, Democrat, didn’t matter.
“I didn’t care who was president when I went on the White House lawn. You just always knew the person in the White House is looking out for us and our children,” she said. Until now.
“I just don’t feel that with this administration,” Rebetsky said. “Donald Trump has broken that trust with families and children.”
When March came around, the White House had yet to announce it was holding the event. The folks who make those commemorative eggs even began to worry.
Rebetsky wondered if there would be a 2017 egg. And that was the first time she realized she would have feelings about a Trump egg. Would she even want one?
That gave her an idea. What if she made an alternative egg? And her life as the alt-egg lady began.
“You’re not doing this nutty thing,” her husband told her, when she proposed raiding her own family’s nest egg of $5,000 to fund making her own egg.
She talked to a marketing guy she knows. She asked him, what if she sold an alternative Easter egg to raise funds for PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts, two organizations on Trump’s budgetary chopping block?
The guy loved the idea. So she called the woodworkers in Maine, Wells Wood Turning & Finishing, and they agreed to make a batch of 1,000.
She would ask people to send $15 for the eggs — $5 to cover the cost, $10 to donate to the arts. That should raise $10,000.
She went to teens she knows to help her launch her gofundme.com page. She went to the post office to get advice on how to handle a huge mailing. And she waited.
A month after she started the campaign, the White House announced it would be holding the Easter Egg roll on April 17.
But before filling the White House order, Wells Wood finished Rebetsky’s eggs.
Her kitchen filled with 1,000 wooden eggs. Then the orders started rolling in.
She and her sister now spend evenings at the kitchen table, packaging and addressing the little wooden eggs, which say “Protect Our Children’s Future 2017,” with a sketch of dancing Easter Bunnies.
One idea, one kitchen table, and more than $13,000 raised so far.