For immediate release, February 14, 2010
Contacts: Mabel Leon, 518-372-1531, mleon2@nycap.rr.com
Pat Gumson, 518-489-7045, pgumson@gmail.com
Grannies for Peace will celebrate Valentine’s Day at Colonie Center in a 2-part event with the message: WAR BREAKS GRANNIES’ HEARTS. On Sunday, February 14, 2010, from 3:00-3:30PM, grannies will vigil outside Colonie Center, at Central Avenue & Wolf Road, with large broken hearts, banners & signs about the tragic waste of war deaths & destruction. Then grannies will stroll through Colonie Center, bedecked in large red hearts, serenading shoppers with the song, “Give Peace a Chance.”
Pat Gumson of Albany explains why she joined Grannies for Peace and will vigil on Valentine’s Day: "As a mother of 5, step-mother of 3 and grandmother of 9, I feel along with all mothers and grandmothers around the world the sanctity and preciousness of every child...every son..... every daughter.” Pat brings special knowledge to this issue, “As a nurse and retired director of the DOH Traumatic Brain Injury Program -- who served as Principal Investigator of a federal grant for vets with brain injury -- the signature injury of these wars, I am painfully aware of its impact on these courageous soldiers and their families. I am afraid to even imagine what it means for civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
Mabel Leon of Schenectady, grandmother of 4, explains why she will demonstrate: “I have been joining the Grannies for Peace Valentine’s Day Vigil for the past 5 years. Each year we state our love of family and grandchildren and publicly show our hearts breaking for the casualties of war.”
Leon says, “War breaks my heart as I think about those grandmothers who have lost grandchildren as casualties of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some grandchildren have died, others have returned with disabling wounds, and some have internal emotional wounds that will not heal. All grandmothers love their children the world over, so my heart also breaks for grandmothers everywhere who are suffering the loss of their grandchildren taken by the violence of war.”
Grannies for Peace was founded in 2006 and is a project of Women Against War. See the Women Against War website for information on Grannies’ past Valentine’s Day vigils and other actions.
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