Peninsula/Palo Alto Stepping Up Virtual Presence During Crisis

Actions like this July 2, 2019, demonstration in Palo Alto to protest immigrant family detention and deportation are halted because of COVID-19, but the branch is stepping up its virtual presence. Photo by Jack Owicki / probonophoto.

By Judy Adams
Peninsula/Palo Alto Branch

April 2020

As the organizer of the Peninsula/Palo Alto Branch’s weekly peaceful sidewalk vigil/demonstrations every Friday from noon to 1 pm, I announced their postponement until the COVID-19 crisis was over—just before the shelter-in-place regulations for California were announced.

However, as all WILPF US branches are doing now, I have been stepping up the branch’s “virtual” presence and peace actions with email, Facebook posts, and providing volunteers the opportunity to participate in get-out-vote activities from the safety of their homes, such as making phone calls or sending out letters and postcards.

I am also working to arrange branch meetings using the Zoom platform to avoid personal contact during the pandemic. It is important to encourage members to keep in contact via branch email and phone calls, to provide encouragement and allow us to have a change in focus from virus conversations and concerns.

A note on events and COVID-19: Our branch and San Jose WILPF were co-sponsoring a local event as part of Pat Elder’s CA tour on the dangers of PFAS on or near military bases, which would have included Marylia Kelley of Livermore’s Tri-Valley CAREs, which studies nuclear contamination of military/research facilities. But out of a concern for the safety of attendees, the San Jose Peace Center canceled all events at the Center. Joan Goddard, of our San Jose WILPF branch, went to the center to distribute materials about PFAS contamination provided by Nancy Price and Pat on the afternoon of the event, to people who didn’t see the cancellation announcement. We hope to have Pat out again after this crisis is over, and to work again with our San Jose sisters.

Our main task now is to keep up our email and Facebook posts on peace, justice, and nuclear disarmament issues, and also to help communicate Poor People’s Campaign concerns as they transition to a virtual June 20, 2020 action. We also continue to work diligently on transferring information from WILPF’s petitions in support of the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for Ellen Thomas!  

I am also working with my city, Menlo Park (which I recruited in 2018 as a Mayors for Peace city), to plan events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, including a film on the Hibakusha and speakers at the city library. And with the help of a local art gallery owner who has started a nonprofit for Menlo Park public art, and the participation of local school children (assuming the pandemic has ended in August), we are helping plan a project to make paper crane installations around the city. Paper cranes from WILPF might be contributed to this project.