02 Mar VETERANS FOR PEACE GOLDEN RULE PROJECT RECEIVES LOCAL FUNDING BOOST

NEWS RELEASE

Contact: Jane Hill Email: hill.jane1913@sbcglobal.net

Phone: (916) 752-5896

A festival of events to promote peace andsupport the voyage of the Golden Rule For release: Immediate

The Against the Wind Festival organizers presented a check for $14,500 to Helen Jaccard, VFP Golden Rule Project Manager, funds raised by festival events and donors last fall. The Against the Wind Festival was created by local volunteers to draw attention to the nuclear threat to life on earth and to fuel a new voyage of the first nuclear protest vessel, the Golden Rule.  ATW Committee chair Jack Irvine noted, “We could not have accomplished this ambitious goal without the support of more than fifty local donors and sponsors.”  

The five events for the October week included an opening concert, the Power of Protest; a forum with international nuclear experts, Mortality, Morality & the Atom Bomb; Reeling in the Bomb: A Night of Film; a lecture by historian Lawrence Wittner on The Golden Rule and the Campaign for a Nuclear-free World; and three performances of Which Way the Wind?, the revival of an anti-nuclear arms docudrama that premiered in 1959. There was also a student art and poetry project that resulted in the publication of “Fresh Perspectives on War and Peace.”  The student art will be featured at the Morris Graves Museum in its spring 2019 Youth Arts Festival

Local volunteer committee members are currently meeting to consider future events to support this cause.  “We believe in the potential of small groups working together to create positive change,” said committee member John Heckel, who directed the Which Way the Wind? revival with local actors.

The original Golden Rule set sail in 1958 to stop nuclear testing in the atmosphere and inspired the many peace makers and peace ships that followed. The reborn Golden Rule, raised from the bottom of Humboldt Bay and rebuilt by volunteers and member of Veterans for Peace in 2010, is sailing once more to show that nuclear abolition is possible, and that bravery and tenacity can overcome militarism.  The crew also spreads the word about the continuing dangers of nuclear power and the poisoning of the air, water, and soil from the entire nuclear cycle, from uranium mining to the disposal of nuclear waste. Humboldt Bay VFP Chapter 56 continues to donate to the Golden Rule.

“There is lots of excitement and many people are stepping up to help make the Golden Rule voyages successful,” said Jaccard, who visited Japan in December 2017 to prepare for the Golden Rule’s voyage to Japan and for participation with the Japanese commemorating the 75^th anniversary in August, 2020 of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 2020. 

Further information is at www.againstthewindfestival.org   and www.vfpgoldenruleproject.org