On May 11, 2007, in honor of the original declaration of the Mother's Day of Peace, a sizable cadre of peace-loving Louisvillians made the circuit of the elected officials and other very important people who could move our cause forward. Our initial visit was to the Muhammad Ali Institute at the University of Louisville, which has a mission that is practically identical to that of the Department of Peace. We watched the short video which very aptly describes the campaign and then presented the staff with their pies. Preaching to the choir is so much fun!

Our next stop was directly across the hall – the McConnell Center, named for the Minority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell. The Center is responsible for incubating 30 of the best and brightest students at the university, and instilling in them a sense of civic purpose and motivation to do good things for society. Barbara Perry, Director of the Center and Senator McConnell's Senior Fellow, expressed her appreciation for the action we were taking, stating that "Civic actions should be civil, and this is the perfect expression of a civil civic action."

On to our freshman Congressman, John Yarmuth's office. The wonderful Mr.Yarmuth wasn’t present, but District Director Carolyn Whitaker-Tandy and the very friendly staff was happy to accept both a lunchtime quiche and dessert pie, saying they’d pass the sentiment on to the Congressman that evening. Happily, the DC Peace Alliance group was able to give John a pie at his office there. Thank you so much, Kathy Kidd! We look forward to adding the letter "Y" to the alphabet of co-sponsors!

Senator McConnell's office was but a hop and a skip down 6th Street, so we gifted them with pies and the message, leaving them aware that we are building bridges of understanding with the Department of Peace campaign.

Next, we surprised our "Mayor For Life" Jerry Abramson, who posed for a group photo with us. He moseyed back to his office to fetch a business card for Kim, and on his way back was singing "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine". I think he got it. Actually, our intention is to bring the entire notion of a Department of Peace here to Louisville and do a prototype. It’s already in place…..just needs for all the players to merge together and create the template.

With that in mind, our group split in two, with one visiting Police Chief White’s office. He was all for the idea and is totally on board with it. The rest of us went to give pies to available Metro Council members, who normally are gone on a Friday afternoon. We did meet with Rob Holtzmann, Legislative Assistant to Jim King of the 10th district. He recommended that we set up a meeting on a Thursday night when Metro Council gets together and present our ideas. Our meeting is set up for June 14th.

Next, we danced over to the Muhammad Ali Center, where we showed Mr. Michael J. Fox (President/CEO) the short video (which brought him to tears), and were told that we have his total and unabashed cooperation in any and all things that we do, and we have carte blanche regarding the lovely and accommodating Center for activities and events. He took the Department of Peace video to show to The Champ the following Wednesday.

On to the Center for Women and Families, where we were running a little late, and followed a bevy of Girl Scouts bearing goodies and a Peace banner into the Center. It was a short and sweet meeting, and we were promised a future engagement with that organization.

All in all, it was an amazingly productive day. No one who encountered us will forget it, and that is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Love and peace to all,
Trudi Kubik

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