Exclusion presumes unbelonging, but there is no Planet Homelessness from where our neighbors experiencing homelessness emerged. Homelessness is a homegrown problem. Most of our unhoused neighbors were once our housed neighbors — and family members, classmates and friends. It’s long past time that we start treating them as such.

This book was left on my porch by my friend and neighbor Cardie. She follows the work of the Homelessness Task Force here in Fairfax City, which we work to give as much visibility as possible. One of the suggestions at the end of this book is to gift this book to someone else. That’s a great suggestion in moving forward a conversation addressing homelessness “not as a problem to be solved, but as people to be loved.”

What you will find here is individual stories, research, statistics, data, and public policies gathered from around the country. We can see with our own eyes the increase in people who are living unhoused in our community, and yet that is the tip of a very large iceberg that includes so many families, children, and others who are invisible among people in this country without stable housing.

Continue reading When We Walk By – Kevin Adler at Read. Think. Act..

(June 2023) This is such a powerful book. It’s not just the individual journey of Brandon P. Fleming, which is an odyssey of Homeric proportions; it’s how he challenged accepted beliefs about education and changed the lives of Black children by creating opportunities. It’s about the nexus of scholarship and culture.

The first part of Miseducated reminds me of Tara Westover’s memoir Educated. This is where the details of biography help us to understand the person we are connecting with. We are shaped by our life experiences. There are also true autodidacts among us and perhaps not as rare as we believe them to be.

The poverty, family trauma, institutional racism that plagues this country, the drugs and the enormous economy it’s created, athletic excellence that is valued over academic achievement, the Black culture that is seen as separate and apart from the American culture that is by default White – all of these things are woven into this man’s story.

One of the most surprising aspects of this book for me was the role of Liberty University based in Lynchburg, Virginia. Of all the unlikely places for a Black inner-city athlete to land, this was a stunner for me – a native Virginian who knows the genesis of this institution as one centered on conservative Christian beliefs.

Continue reading Miseducated – Brandon Fleming at Read. Think. Act..

(Nov 2022) I love this book! I told the author, David Toscano, that I wanted to crawl between the pages and curl myself up in it.

I started reading Bellwether: Virginia’s Political Transformation, 2006-2020 on November 12, 2022, tucked up in a chair in a mountain cabin in Greene County, VA. Four days earlier, on November 8th, I was elected Mayor of the City of Fairfax, VA. It was a close race and I hadn’t read a book in the four months of campaigning leading up to Election Day. I was starved for a book in which to immerse myself and this was the perfect balm for a weary soul.

The people and events in this book are not unknown to me. Many of these elected leaders are friends, people I know because I worked on their campaigns to get them elected to our state government. What was new is the perspective of what happened from an insider’s point of view. David Toscano was in the room where it happened.

The author’s writing style made it easy to read and I loved the voluminous footnotes at the end of each chapter. Many are very detailed and added a level of depth to events and history this was fascinating without interrupting the flow of the narrative.

Continue reading Bellwether – David J. Toscano at Read. Think. Act..



(Sept 25, 2022) Catherine Read talks with author P. O’Connell Pearson about her newest book We Are Your Children Too: Black Students, White Supremacists, and the Battle for America’s Schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, to be published in January 2023. This is Patty Pearson’s third non-fiction history designed for young readers. Her 25 year career as a high school history teacher inspired her to seek an MFA in Writing for Young People. Her previous books include Fly Girls, Fighting for the Forest, and Watergate.

More information about Patty Pearson and her books can be found at
www.POConnellPearson.com

Continue reading We Are Your Children Too – P. O’Connell Pearson at Read. Think. Act..

(Sept 19, 2022) Catherine Read talks with Bonnie Stabile, Founder of the Gender and Policy (GAP) Center of George Mason University’s Schar School of Government & Policy.

The GAP Center was established in 2017. Areas of research include Gender, Policy Analysis, Program Evaluation, Bioethics, and Ethics in Public Policy.

Bonnie is an Associate Professor at Mason and the 2019 recipient of the Schar School of Government & Policy Teaching Award. She has co-authored the book Women, Power and Rape Culture: The Politics and Policy of Underrepresentation with Aubrey Grant. The book will be published in September 2022.

The GAP Center hosts conferences and panels throughout the year. Find upcoming events at www.genderandpolicy.gmu.edu

Past events can be found on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/ScharSchoolofPolicyandGovernment

Follow the GAP Center on Instagram @genderandpolicycenter and find Bonnie Stabile on Twitter @bstabile1

Continue reading Gender and Policy Center – Bonnie Stabile at Read. Think. Act..

(Sept 5, 2022) Catherine Read talks with Dale Brumfield, author, and former Field Director for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP). Virginia became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty when Governor Ralph Northam signed HB2263 into law on March 24, 2021, at the Greenville Correctional Center.

Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside Story of Death Penalty Abolition in Virginia was published in May 2022. It follows two previous books – Railroaded and Virginia Penitentiary: A Notorious History – which examine Virginia’s criminal justice system, the history of executions, and incarceration.

This most recent book opens with the story of the near execution of Tom Wansley, a Black teenager falsely accused of rape the 1960s in Lynchburg, Virginia. It goes on to detail the history of executions in Virginia beginning in 1608, and follows the pattern of executions through the modern era. Virginia has executed 1,390 people, more than any other state. This number includes 94 women, 736 enslaved people, and at least 16 children whose ages were verified between 11 and 17.

This book is a riveting history of Virginia’s relationship to capital punishment and the people and organizations that worked valiantly to end it.

Continue reading Closing the Slaughterhouse – Dale Brumfield at Read. Think. Act..

(Aug 22, 2022) Catherine Read talks with Holly Seibold, Founder of BRAWS: Bringing Resources to Aid Women’s Shelters, a non-profit established in 2015. BRAWS started as a direct services organization to meet the needs of women in area shelters with menstrual supplies, new bras, and underwear.

Recognizing the lack of basic supplies to manage monthly periods was impacting menstruating individuals in jails, prisons, and schools, she expanded her efforts to include legislative advocacy. Three marquis legislative goals have been met since Holly began her advocacy work.

Working with Delegate Kaye Kory, House Bill 83 – which ensures access to menstruating inmates at no cost, was passed in 2018. The bill was signed into law by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. Holly Seibold and Gianna Feinberg authored an article for the Richmond Public Interest Law Review that looks at this issue in detail.

Working with Senator Jennifer Boysko in 2019, a bill was introduced to eliminate the “tampon tax.” While that tax was not eliminated that year, it was cut in half by a bill signed into law by Gov. Northam. That reduction was effective Jan. 1, 2020. With the election of a new Governor in 2021, elimination of the tax on groceries became part of Gov.

Continue reading Holly Seibold – Founder of BRAWS at Read. Think. Act..

(Aug 17, 2022) Catherine Read talks with Elijah Lee, a 14-year-old community activist who founded the non-profit Hear Our Voices in 2021. The goal of his organization is to empower young people to be agents of change. He is a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar, a member of the National Junior Honor Society, and a freshman at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School in Richmond.

Elijah has been an advocate against child abuse since he was 10 years old. In addition to organizing marches and rallies to raise awareness of the prevalence of child abuse, he has successfully led fundraising projects to design child-friendly spaces in hospitals where victims of child abuse are treated. His activism has garnered national attention with appearances on the Kelly Clarkson Show, coverage in PEOPLE magazine, and inclusion in the Kids Speak Out About Violence book. He was featured on the Marvel Hero Project streaming on Disney+, episode 2 Incredible Elijah. Catherine last interviewed Elijah for Your Need to Know on Dec. 29, 2021.

Being selected to join the 2022 Advocacy Cohort for Voices for Virginia’s Children gave Elijah the opportunity to attend the Virginia General Assembly legislative session in 2022. Learning how bills are drafted, how subcommittees and committees function, and making connections with legislators inspired Elijah to work on 15 bills for the legislative session starting January 11, 2023.

Continue reading Elijah Lee on Your Need to Know at Read. Think. Act..

(Aug 15, 2022) Catherine Read talks with Katherine White, one of the founders of Network NOVA. This organization came together in 2017 following the Women’s March in Washington, DC. In only 70 days following that event, they launched the first Women’s Summit in June of 2017.

They have hosted a Women’s Summit every year since then, including a multi-day virtual event during 2020.

This year, there are three events – one in June in Northern Virginia, an event in Waynesboro called Rural Valley in August, and the third summit in Virginia Beach in September. Attendance has grown exponentially every year since its inception. Women have attended these events from all over Virginia every year, and the number of elected progressive women candidates also continues to rise. There is a correlation here. Network NOVA continues to connect women with candidate training, workshops, and networks of supporters and donors. That network gets bigger and stronger every year.

In addition to these annual events, Network NOVA launched the weekly Friday Power Lunch during the pandemic. Using an online platform that has became a global communication tool, Katherine and her colleagues taught themselves how to create a dynamic one hour virtual program.

Continue reading Network NOVA with Katherine White at Read. Think. Act..

(Aug. 10, 2022) Catherine Read speaks with Rachel Simon, Regional Relationship Manager in the DC area for Tickets for Kids Charities.

The mission of Tickets for Kids is to provide at-risk children with experiences that inspire hope, dreams, and achievements for a lifetime. For children from low-income families, tickets for in-person events are often out of reach financially. Recognizing that this creates an experience gap with peers, Tickets for Kids gathers and then distributes free tickets to cultural, educational, and athletic events. Through partnerships with youth-serving organizations, tickets are given out for trips to museums, concerts, science centers, zoos, athletic events, and more.

The original organization was founded in Pittsburgh, PA, in 1994 by Susan Weiner. Over the years they have merged with similar organizations across the US to provide greater reach in local communities. In 2021, Tickets for Kids distributed more than 60,000 tickets in 25 states. Rachel currently has 5,000 tickets to Washington Nationals baseball games in the next two months and hopes to identify local youth-centered organizations with which to collaborate on getting them distributed. She is also working with local venues in the metro DC area to provide tickets for upcoming holiday events focused on Halloween and Holiday Light shows.

Continue reading Tickets for Kids on Your Need to Know at Read. Think. Act..