OROVILLE – The 29th Annual Mothers’ Day Walk for peace will take place this Sunday, May 13 with a gathering at the U.S./Canada Port of Entry at 2 p.m.
As International Peace Activists we gather at the Osoyoos-Oroville International Border to share our messages of Peace and Justice on our local Mothers’ Day Walk for Peace. This annual event is sponsored by the Doukhobor Communities of Western Canada, the Okanagan and Okanogan Peacemakers, Veterans for Peace and other organizations. Please come to hear and share important messages of peace and justice as we gather on Mothers’ Day 2012.
We will meet at the Oroville Public Library and leave to walk to the border at noon. You can drive to the border also. Join us in this annual program in celebration of peace at the border at 2 p.m. Bring something to sit on, an umbrella for shade or to shed a shower, and a message, song, or poem of peace and justice.
The first North American Mother’s Day was conceptualized with Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on mothers to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their sons killing the sons of other mothers. She called for an International Mother’s Day celebrating peace and motherhood.
Thirty years ago this week we held the first Mother’s Day Walk in protest of the first testing of U.S. cruise missiles over Canada. Military expenditures have grown increasingly and today 56 cents of every tax dollar goes to the military, not to mention several trillion spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that president Bush put on the credit card. Services to the most vulnerable among our population are being cut and the nation’s debt soars. It is time to chart a new positive direction for this great nation. If we the people stand together for peace, change can happen and new directions will be found.
Come and celebrate peace and justice in our communities. For more information, Joseph Enzensberger, (509) 476-4072, jgenz4@gmail.com or Rick Gillespie, (509) 485-3844, rickg@columbiana.org
