On April 27 Mary Queen hosted BUILD's drive in option for this year's  Nehemiah Action, what a privilege! Our wonderful Knights of Columbus welcomed our officials and guests and organized the parking of the 220 cars that packed our lot. Adam Beeken and Kit Donahue professionally ran the audio. MQ's Justice Ministry did a great job turning out people to stand for justice. And, Fr. Dan's opening reflection was so powerful and inspiring!  Great job everyone! 

We are still counting who attended the Zoom and Drive in options, but there were over 1100 unique cars and Zoom logins. I am excited to see how MQ did! 

What I do know for sure is that we moved more affordable housing forward when Councilman Brown agreed to propose to the Council $10 Million from the American Rescue Plan and to work with BUILD to find a dedicated funding source to generate $10 Million/year. We got a commitment from Dr. Helm and Board of Ed members Murphy and Morris to begin the process of full school implementation of SaferSanerSchools model in 5 FCPS. She also agreed to meet with us in June to report on that progress and share the most current data on school suspensions. Unfortunately Mayor Gorton said no to implementing Group Violence Intervention after several years of BUILD asking for this proven strategy while the amount of gun violence increases. She said that she is concerned about the strategy being seen as racist. We responded that not addressing the killing of African American men is racist. The Mayor is meeting with different groups to listen to other voices regarding this concern. We continue to press for a proven method to reduce violence. 

Great job MQ and your work and commitment to make Lexington a City for God.