Note from the chair, December 2020

Starting back when Will Lane was still chair, Gettysburg DFA has had an ongoing conversation about what our focus should be and how we should approach the new times we’re living in. While we haven’t yet decided “what we want to be when we grow up,” we have all agreed that we want to promote a focus on how we can work with other people at the local level to improve how our democracy works.

Our education and healthcare task forces have always had a local focus. Other things we have done to promote a local focus include:

• A study on poverty in Adams County, to be released in the next few weeks

• Publication of “News and Notes” to serve as an information exchange among local groups

• A questionnaire by our Education task force that asked the two state Senate candidates to outline their positions on education issues

• Sponsoring meetups on state and local issues such as pending state constitutional amendments

• Encouraging our members to get involved with local organizations such as CARES, SCCAP, the Farmer’s Market, and with local campaigns. 

Today we introduce a new talent who we hope will blog for us from time to time. Carolyn Ryan is a relatively recent arrival in Gettysburg and writes a blog focused on family, meatless cooking, and low carbon footprint living. When she first wrote me about writing for our blog, it struck me that her focus was a good fit with our new emphasis on making democracy work at the local level. I hope she continues to contribute to our blog.

And that reminds me, other members are encouraged to prepare material for our blog (www.gettysburgdfa.org). If you want to write for us, e mail me at leonsreed@gmail.com