LETTER TO COMMUNITY FROM CO-FOUNDERS

Beloved community,

Here 4 The Kids began as us two mothers, one South Asian and one Black, having regular conversations about our grief over mass shooting death and American gun violence culture.

Our grief over our "leaders" indifference to our children's pain and suffering.

Since the Columbine school shooting over 24 years ago, our kids have been shot and killed at alarming rates. Our elected officials - Republicans and Democrats - have done nothing to save our children. The truth is that no one is coming to save our children.

We have to save our children.

Every day there's a new school shooting, every day more children are murdered and traumatized. Our government is failing us at every level, and whatever it is that our "leaders" have been doing HAS NOT WORKED.

Gun violence and gun deaths in the US are rising and getting worse despite the fact that we have the most gun legislation in our nation's history.

In short: we have more state laws restricting guns AND more gun deaths.

Deaths in children and teens have risen by 50% in just the last two years, and guns are now the number one killer of kids in America.

Enough is Enough.

WE are Here 4 The Kids.

We need a federal ban on guns + a buyback plan.

Ours is a national movement with a state-by-state strategy, beginning in Colorado.

We are a kid-loving movement.

We are an All Power To The People movement (in honor of the Black Panther Party).

We are the ones we have been waiting for (in the words of Alice Walker).

We are not owned by anyone, and we do not answer to or align with any political party.

We come together in honor of - and are following in the footsteps of - the Black civil rights leaders and peaceful protesters who gathered in March 1965 to march from Selma to Montgomery. Despite being brutalized by Alabama state troopers, which became known as Bloody Sunday, they persevered, and their sacrifice, dedication, and actions led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

We are here to ban guns, have the government buy them back, and save all the children in the United States from the guns that are killing them every single day.

Here 4 The Kids is for anyone who has grieved the loss of precious human life due to American gun violence culture, and those who are done accepting this as the norm that it has become.

We are an army of ordinary people who will no longer accept the desensitization of American gun violence culture.

Our hope is for a future that does not include guns as being the number one killer of kids, a future that does not include guns.

Ending American gun violence culture is what unifies us and activates us.

We refuse to continue living like this.

Enough thoughts and prayers.

Enough of legislators doing nothing or saying they have done all they can do.

Enough empty promises.

Enough gaslighting of the American people.

Gun deaths of children in schools are uniquely and exclusively American.

No other country on the planet lives like this, where children are at risk of being killed just because they go to school.

We refuse to stand by and let this madness continue.

It's the fucking guns.

And it's time to ban them and buy them back.

We can and we will.

Because it's time to usher America into an era of healing, which can only begin once we get rid of the guns.

If you have hope, if you want to believe, if you can imagine with us a world where our kids and teachers can go to school and not have to normalize active shooter drills and not have to either live through or die from another school or mass shooting, then this is the moment, this is the movement, for you.

Join us. We need you. We love you. See you in Denver.

Saira and Tina,

Co-Founders