PEACE WALK ORGANIZING BEGINS NOW

On Wednesday afternoon I will drive north to Farmington, Maine to meet with Veterans for Peace member Doug Rawlings to begin working on the Maine VFP peace walk that will run from November 3-11.

Doug came on the walk I helped organize as it passed through Maine last spring. He brought along a good number of students from University of Maine Farmington where he works and we both had determined that we need to do it again as soon as possible. We also agreed that we wanted Brother Kato from the Peace Pagoda in Leverett, Massachusetts to lead the walk again and these days in November were open for the folks from Nipponzan Myohoji to be with us.

I will start in Farmington and then drive the walk route and begin mapping it so we have the exact details on paper before we start. I'll be looking for rest stops, places for lunch breaks, and the like. The walk is planned to go from Farmington-Waterville-Bangor-Belfast-Rockland-Bath-Freeport-Portland. Already I have found local coordinators for most of the evening stops where they will organize pot luck suppers, a program, and make sleeping arrangements for us.

We will end the walk on November 11 by participating in the annual Veterans Day parade in Portland.

Doug and I want to make a special effort to get more students involved in the walk and have already begun spreading the word. Just today I had a call from a student at Bowdoin College in Brunswick who was interested in helping us.

There will be several key issues we intend to address during the peace walk: ending Afghanistan war, cutting military spending, veterans issues surrounding PTSD and suicide, and the environmental costs of war. We haven't settled on a title for the walk yet but have a working name at this point - Walk for peace, human needs and veterans care.

Please consider coming and joining us for this walk on November 3-11. It will be a wonderful fall experience as we take our peace message directly to these communities throughout our state.