Since the inauguration on Jan. 21, EMPOWER Club has been writing postcards to Senators in response to the new administration. The members of EMPOWER have the liberty to write a postcard about any issue that they feel is pertinent at the moment.

EMPOWER is a club that strives for gender equality at York. Recently, hundreds of cities around the world hosted women’s marches. The Women’s March launched a campaign to continue the fight even after the marches were over. It is called “10 Actions for the first 100 days”.

“The first action is to write a postcard to your Senators about what matters most to you, and how you are going to continue to fight for it in the days, weeks, and months ahead,” said Mrs. DiTomasso, club sponsor.

The postcards to Senators are just the first action of the nine that follow. The other actions include calling your congressmen, joining marches for jobs, justice, or climate change, and even going to town hall meetings. As for the postcards though, students are encouraged to include important issues affecting any person at the moment.

“Pour your heart out on any issue that your care about, whether it’s ending gender-based violence, reproductive rights or women’s health, LGBTQ rights, workers rights, civil rights, immigrant rights, religious freedom, environmental justice or anything else,” said DiTomasso.

The club members are especially hoping for their postcards to be acknowledged by our Illinois government in addition to just the Federal Government as a whole.

“We’re lucky in Illinois to have Durbin and Duckworth who are supportive of democratic goals, so we were hoping the postcards could just show them that we support what they’re doing in the senate,” said officer of EMPOWER Amanda Schafer.

DiTomasso encourages students to check out the hashtag #WhyIMarch for inspiration on what to include in their own postcards.

Aside from the writing of the postcards, EMPOWER has several other events coming up this semester.

“Second semester, our focus revolves around International Stop Violence Against Women Day, Women’s History Month, which is in March, the Don’t Be That Guy Campaign around Prom, and raising awareness of the inequity in pay on Tax Day in April,” said DiTomasso.

Watch for what EMPOWER does next and maybe even stop by one of their meetings on Tuesdays after school in Mrs. DiTomasso’s room, A396.