CALLING FOR CHANGE
Students, community rally for violence-free schools
POTTSTOWN » There are those that say “youth is wasted on the young,” but there are plenty of people in Pottstown who beg to differ.
On Saturday crowds showed up to Riverfront Park to show their support for students in the area and across the country who are looking to make their voices heard when it comes to gun violence in schools through the March for Our Lives movement.
“Instead of deciding to make a political impact where we would protest about having stricter gun laws, we all decided that we
would like to make a social impact,” student Noorie Dhingra explained to the crowd. “Where any student that is struggling or any community member that is struggling who needs help, they can come to anyone and we can have a strong network of community members who would help them out.”
The rally is one of many that were held across the country on Saturday as part of the March for Our Lives movement, created to take a stand against gun violence in schools. The movement, along with others were created in the wake of last month’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that killed 17 students after the gunman gained access to the school.
The event in Pottstown was organized by Dhingra, a Hill School freshman who reached out to multiple community organizations and leaders including
several Pottstown pastors, students and parents from Pottstown High School, the YWCA, the Pottstown NAACP and a representative of the Molding Men organization. The volunteers were joined by students involved with the Pottstown CARES student leadership council comprised of Hill School and Pottstown School District students and other students.
In addition to several speakers, which included Pottstown Mayor Stephanie Henrick, as well as a few area students, those in attendance were encouraged to sign a petition which stated:
“As a member of the Pottstown community, I pledge to educate myself on community issues and problems, to work with others to resolve conflict and create a more positive place to learn and live. As an advocate of Pottstown and it’s community members, I participate in dialogue and activities that contribute violencefree schools, workplaces, homes and other places.”
Rally-goers carrying signs, many of whom had made their way over from Pottstown Borough Hall, gathered near the pavilion in Riverfront Park beginning at noon on Saturday as students and community members spoke about the change they want to see.
“Call me naive but I believe that we are going to be the generation that saves us when the older generations wouldn’t,” said Maggie Pearson, a senior at The Hill School who spoke at the rally. “Because we are leading the charge to demand more from our leaders. Because we have allowed ourselves to empathize with one another.”
As the rally went on, speakers talked, not only about the need to make a change, but also about the power youth have to make that change in the face of doubt.
“I invited my friend up here because I liked his sign. It says, ‘Not one more.’ Not one more means to me, not in a political sense but, not one more time will anybody tell young people that they can’t have a voice,” said Emmanuel Wilkerson, member of the Pottstown School Board and the youngest ever elected official in Pennsylvania. “It’s about all of us having a purpose and the greatest asset we have is the children ... When I was 18 I ran for school board and became the youngest elected official in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania so I believe in young people getting involved because at the end of the day, the future is here now.”