Washington, D.C., moms open homes to student marchers.
It started with a tweet from a Washington, D.C., mom.
“As a D.C. resident and a mother of a high schooler, I’ll help to find free lodging for kids and their families coming to this march,” Elizabeth Andrews wrote on Feb. 18.
The message galvanized a network of D.C.-area parents and neighbors to volunteer as host families for out-of-state students and their chaperones during the March for Our Lives event March 24.
The group’s nine cofounding moms called their effort March for Our Lives Lodging on social media.
So far, they say they’ve secured 1,000 homes for out-of-state marchers. About 350 people have been set up with lodging, the group says.
“We want as many people in our town as possible for our march,” said Andrews, who has an 18-year-old daughter. “This is one way we can support you if you want to come to our city and you don’t think you can afford a place to stay. We will open our doors to you.”
Andrews, a corporate tax attorney, said she’s been surprised by the outpouring of people looking to open their homes for the march based on her initial tweet.
“I threw that out there into the universe, and maybe people will look at it and think, ‘Oh, I can host someone, too,’ ” she said. “It restores your faith in humanity is what it does.”
Andrews said she was also moved by the eloquent speeches and the gun-control and school-safety advocacy by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
“The viral video with Emma Gonzalez and all these kids acting with such poise,” she said, recalling watching them on the Sunday morning news shows after the Feb. 14 mass shooting. “There is something about these kids who have lived through it.”
The volunteers have met up at a local pizza joint, a library conference room and volunteers’ homes. Mostly, though, the work has been done online.
They have various roles within the group, from public relations to reading online submissions for housing and matching student marchers with host families. They are also working with Stoneman Douglas alumni.
“We are all working moms,” said Julia Beck, one of the group’s members, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md. She has been helping out with public relations. “We have this amazing range of skills and capabilities, and everybody has been good at being collaborative.”
She said she wanted to help because one of her longtime camp friends has a daughter who is a student at Stoneman Douglas and another daughter who is a recent graduate.
“Our conversations on the day of the shootings left me feeling two things: one, broken-hearted and two, ready to offer support however I could,” said Beck, whose children are 15, 19, 21 and 26. She is the founder of It’s Working Project, which helps the private sector develop programs attractive to new parents. “I was en route to Paris and frankly could not get over the feeling that I’d be safer there than our kids are in U.S. schools at present. That is not OK.”
She and the other volunteers are also working to welcome the visitors by providing brown-bag lunches and flowers to take to the march. They are also coordinating rides and potluck dinners
“We want to make it so they feel at home for the weekend,” Beck said.
The group requires anyone who wants to host or stay to have a social media profile to confirm their identity and learn of their interests. That helps the group organizers in recommending a match.
Families with an extra bedroom or comfortable couch who want to open their homes and marchers who want to find a place through the group can sign up through the website, DCAmbs.org/Lodging.
The volunteers plan to welcome visitors with brown-bag lunches and flowers to take to the march.