 Hi, I'm Lisa Savage, I'm running for the U.S. Senate under Ranked Choice Voting here in Maine, and I'm here at the Portland Media Center this evening for a People's Summit to have the conversations that don't make it into U.S. Senate debates often. I'm very pleased to be here with Jerry Edwards of the Black-Owned Maine, Black-Owned Business Maine, Black-Owned Maine, sorry, Adam Rice of the Maine People's Housing Justice Coalition and Luke Secura-Flanders of Community Water Justice. We're here to not debate each other, but to have a conversation about what are the needs of our community, and I'm going to ask each of these gentlemen to introduce themselves a little bit more before we get our conversation started. Jerry? Hello, my name is Jerry Edwards. I'm also known as Genius Black. I'm a creator, a music producer and an engineer out in the community, but also I am one of the people who my good friend Rose Barboza who founded and started Black-Owned Maine. She pulled me in from day one, and I helped to launch that locally here. We started here in Southern Maine, but we are a directory of all the Black-Owned businesses in the state of Maine. We also have the Black-Owned Maine podcast, we call it BOMP. You can check that out. And then also, we give grants to families and even financial support to businesses that are BIPOC owned. So out here trying to make a difference, people vote with their dollars, trying to get those dollars to BIPOC businesses and just raise awareness and just help Maine to become a place that is really, really welcoming to Black folks, even though it has this view of many people that there's no Black people here, but they are here. So, yes. Thanks, Jerry. Adam? Yeah. My name is Adam Rice. I primarily work with the Maine Peoples Housing Coalition and another organization called Youth Without Barriers. We're a peer-led group of Portland residents that operate in a non-hierarchal fashion using peer support and mutual aid to provide help and resources to our unhoused community members. Also, I am working with the Church of Safe Injection currently, which is a group doing harm reduction work in the city. And we're working to get some policy change so we could potentially have an overdose prevention facilities in the city and prevent loss of life in many different communities. Thank you, Adam. Luke? Hi. My name is Luke Sikara-Flanders. I'm currently working with Community Water Justice, which is a network of frontline communities across the state of Maine fighting against the privatization of our public water sources as well as the extraction and sale of water for a private profit, namely the bottled water industry. I'm also working with Sunrise Maine, which is a movement led by youth fighting for a Green New Deal and on a more local level advocating for other policies, which bring us through a just transition to a more sustainable economy. I've also worked with a number of other organizations such as the Maine Environmental Education Association, with whom I'm a Maine Environmental Changemaker. I'm worked with Just Me for Just Us. I'm a Maine seed with seeds of peace. And yeah, and a number of other organizations. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Well, Luke, you first came to my attention when I think you were nine years old and you gave a really impactful speech to the Freiburg Town Council, I believe it was. Yeah. It was the Maine Public Utilities Commission. Maine Public Utilities Commission. Yeah. We're discussing a 45-year contract. Nestle was looking to secure a 45-year contract in our town to extract significant amounts of water. And I was testifying in opposition to that because it essentially gave them unfettered access to our area's large aquifer. And eventually that led to an entire process, a huge legal battle, which led to a nationwide precedent sending a case wherein Nestle won. They've now secured a 45-year contract. And now in front of my house even, you know, 24-7 water trucks are rolling in and out of our town. Well, I remember one of the really high-impact things that Luke said at the time was he said, if this contract goes through, I'll be 54 years old by the time it ends. You know, and he was in fourth grade at the time, and I was a teacher at the time. I've just retired from teaching, and that really made impact. So sometimes it's like putting things in context that really makes us kind of understand where they're at. Could you tell us a little bit about your business and kind of the context of your music-producing business that you're doing here in Maine, Jerry? Absolutely. I'm a, yeah, one of the businesses I have. As a music producer, again, my name is Genius Black. I'm also an artist. I love to collaborate and synergize a lot. I first started making music when I was 15 or 16 back in Texas. That's where I'm from. And I'd say when I was at Bowdoin College, I used to work at WBOR, the campus radio station. I used to have a recording studio down in the basement, and I spent way too many hours in college in that recording studio, really learning to home my craft as a producer, as an engineer. And I'd say when I was probably like 22, 23, I got really, really serious. And now I'm 39. So I've really been at it for years. And for me, the process of being a creative person and collaborating with people, drawing on other people's energies, helping them to tell their stories, helping them to achieve a vision, because as a music producer, I'm a very vision-oriented person. That for me actually really coincides with the work that I do at Black-Owned Maine. So one thing about Black-Owned Maine as an organization is that we came, we were, we launched this summer. And Rose, my partner, had really wanted to get out and protest. I should say that, you know, I had been protesting out in the streets in Portland for sure. My daughter went to a protest with me. This was after the murder of George Floyd. And I think that there was just this turning point with my energy, a lot of people's energy. I was really proud of Portland for standing up. And so in the midst of all of that energy, my partner Rose was just kind of like, hey, you know, for certain reasons, child care and stuff, she can't go out and protest. This wasn't realistic. COVID, you know, we're all out there with mask on, trying to have our voices raised. And she came up with the idea to start the business and to start a online directory of all the Black-owned businesses in the state of Maine. The joke is, it's not a joke, but people will say, oh, how many? Can you count them on one hand, maybe two? Well, I mean, we launched with like 60 plus and now there's over 200 businesses on the directory. So for us, it was, it really became a way to collaborate and link up with people and network, but also to specifically support Black and Brown indigenous people in the state of Maine, which there are many, many people, whether it be refugees, people from the South that moved up here, people that were born here, a lot of biracial people. And we think there's a lot of overlooking on the national level. People forget that there's people of color in Maine. And even in the state of Maine, people don't really create spaces for Black and Brown people to be vibrant. And so we want to start in an official way and in an organized way to start to financially make a space for these people to do what they do, but also to just overall for the state of Maine to kind of, you know, after COVID. We know that there's a lot of people who might want to come as tourists, but they don't think Maine is welcome, welcoming to them and people that look like them. We aim to change that both inside of Maine as well as people coming from outside of Maine. So that's the type of work that we do. But again, for me, both in the production and Black on Maine, I'm always in conversations. I'm always collaborating. I'm always trying to feed off of people's energy and see where they're coming from. So I get to live out a lot of just like me, my personality and my talents at Black on Maine. Cool. I know you're a big collaborator, Adam. The tent in this summer was just one example of a collaboration that you're involved in. I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what was the purpose of the tent in encampment on City Hall? Like, how long did it last? Yeah. I also want to thank Black on Maine, too, because you guys were big donors to our mutual aid tents of supplies and face masks and other items. And you guys really came through for our communities. So I wanted to start with that. Yeah, the general purpose was to highlight how many people are actually forced to sleep outside due to bad policies at the local level. One of the issues that was raised at the time with COVID, the soup kitchen where people were getting food was closed. We had been transitioning to a mobile food delivery service. And the people doing that were stopped by the city via the police. And a lot of people were just like, hey, this is just too much. This is a community that's been wronged for as long as I've been alive by bad policies like this. And so we really wanted to show that. And there's a policy, too, where in the shelters they hand out criminal trespass orders. So there's a lot of people that aren't allowed in these facilities. And when the issue of homelessness is raised, a lot of times the statements we get are, well, there's this many beds open. They should use the shelter. And that's missing from that conversation. The same way things are left out of the debate stage or in Augusta or down in DC at the city level, there's a large number of people that, A, aren't a part of a conversation. And things aren't being said that should be by the people we've elected. So everybody here has some different strategies for sort of getting your voice out there and advocating for the things that you care about. I'm just curious, did any elected officials come down to the tent in when you guys were there for like three weeks, something like four weeks? We were there a little over two weeks. The mayor did have a little listening session one day. It did take a lot of prompting. Jeff Valero still has been in pretty close communication with the mayor since then. I believe Tay Chong and possibly Pius, both also came down there. Pius has been great. He's always that one loud voice that's always standing with the people who demand change. I've had a lot of really good opportunities in the past couple of years to thank him for standing up likewise with the protests about a year ago when they were opening that new ICE facility at Monument Square. Pius was the only one right there with us, cheering us on and saying, this is democracy in action. This is how you change things when they need to be changed. Cool. I'm guessing neither of your US senators came down to. Oh, of course not. I would hope they would, but I don't expect them to know. So look, what kind of advocacy for our water here in Maine would you suggest that we band together and do? I know some of the answers to this because of course your mom, Nikki, has been doing this work for a long time and I've heard some really good suggestions from her. My impression has been that people in Maine don't really realize that our water is pretty much privately owned at this point, privately controlled and we just had a drought all winter and I think you guys told me that a billion gallons of water are pumped out of Maine every year and sold in plastic bottles for profit. Yeah, Nestle or through its brand pull and spring is extracting. I think it's just over a billion gallons a year now out of just 10 locations in the state of Maine. That's 10 too many in my opinion, but yeah, some key things we need to see done. For one, it's the removal of corporate influence in all governmental bodies. I mean, in the state house, we're seeing multiple paid Nestle employees being appointed to high profile positions such as on the Board of Environmental Protection, the Maine Drinking Water Program, bodies which are supposed to oversee that make sure that regulations are followed and that corporations aren't horribly abusing our environment and because the motive of a corporation is to ensure that its profits are as massive as they can be, we simply can't trust paid employees of such corporations to be on our regulatory bodies. It does kind of sound like the Fox guarding the hen house. Exactly, it is, certainly. And also we're seeing public water systems being privatized and we're seeing prices being raised. Recently, the Maine Water Company which is based in Connecticut underwent a merger with a water company that's based in California. So that's emerging of two major corporations and that means that water systems here in Maine are now being controlled by a nationwide corporation. And that's never a good sign that means monopolies are starting to emerge and when that happens, you know that the amount of power we, the people, have over our water systems is shrinking every day. So we need to ensure that public water systems are publicly owned and operated and that means securing funding to improving them because of course there have been a lot of concerns with aging infrastructure and that sort of thing. So we need to, yeah, we need to invest in our public water infrastructure to make sure that people have access. Yes, remind you of CMP which is owned by a multinational energy company based in Spain and pushing the CMP Corridor project on us. I was really disappointed to see a bill at the state level that to make CMP a consumer owned and operated utility that was based here in Maine. It kind of died in committee, didn't exactly die. They said, oh, we'll study it. But I'm curious, Black Owned Maine, do you know, we've heard a lot about the paycheck protection plan and other government supports for business here during the pandemic. Are the businesses that you're working with getting relief from the government? Are they getting help or? I don't actually know the answer for many of the businesses. We're only in so much contact directly with the businesses. But of the ones we know of, I've heard of people that have gotten support and people who have applied and got nothing or just don't even really know about it. So I guess I don't have a ton of details but I feel like it's been a pretty, kind of a mismatch or wishwash. I don't think there's been any consistency to that. I know that there are people that have been trying or even people that have applied for our grants that we are offering that we're also trying to get other types of support and even governmental support that hadn't come through yet. So I do know that some people are struggling. I don't have any percentages or numbers of who has actually received support. I used to own a small business before I became a school teacher. I owned a cafe in Skowhegan, Maine and ran it with my brother for seven years and it was amazingly hard to be successful as a small business in Maine. We did manage it, but only because it was a tourism-based business and we would basically make all our money in about two weeks in the summer. If we did not make that two weeks in the summer, then we did not get through the winter. But how many, I mean, are a lot of these businesses seasonal and dependent on tourism or not necessarily? Not necessarily. I mean, it's a mixture. I mean, we have people that on our directory, for instance, that we have artists, we have people who do hair. Like we were just talking about Rafiki shop out here and they just do these amazing and artistic braids in different styles. So you have people where they really support the local community no matter what. And then you have people that are retailers and people that really are dependent on people kind of traveling up North and things like that in the summer. So I guess appropriately, when you look at all of these businesses across the state of Maine, they really hit kind of all the sectors. Again, I think a little known fact is really how many businesses in Maine are owned by people of color. And it's not just restaurants and maybe the number one or two things that you would expect. So again, I would tell people, go and check out the director and see what's there because really it's all the way across the board. That's cool. Hey, Adam, how is the real estate market in Portland? It's a big, a lot of business interest building, a lot of new buildings going up, a lot of high end housing being built. How is that affecting the decisions that government is making on behalf of the people who live here in Portland? Well, I have my own personal opinion that I think our local government definitely works more for the big developers than it does for the renters or the people. If anybody is still unaware of the people first Portland referendums that they can vote on now, that should be an indication of what the situation is when the people want relief with the rental stabilization, the livable wages and facial recognition software, the climate stuff. And for years now, we've been going to these meetings and presenting solutions and demanding or asking for change and there's never any action. So we do these referendums and the city council has come out to tell people not to vote on the things that have been done in a grassroots way. So it's pretty obvious that a lot of the people we're electing are either intent on doing half measures or just giving us lip service. I don't really know another way to put that. But on the local level, one thing that more people should know is that the way Portland defines affordable housing is workforce housing, which is that value is often comprised of the area median income, which would include like Cape Elizabeth, like the mansions in South Portland, some of the Falmouth, like the whole greater Portland area. So you have like an income requirement to actually rent these units, which could be 60 or 70,000 because the way that they're using the percentage, it actually creates a barrier so the people who need it to be actually affordable can't afford it. And likewise, people who hold rental vouchers and assistance through a lot of these programs like Section 8 or BRAP or Shelter Plus, they could apply for apartments for five years and nobody would take those vouchers. And it's a shame because the assistance that's there is falling through the cracks because there is loopholes in discrimination laws. And then the people we've elected to deal with these problems when they happen are more concerned with just saying, hey, we're working on it than actually really getting systematic change. Yeah. I was really proud to earn a DSA mains endorsement for my campaign. They had a pretty rigorous process where they really wanted to know what your values were and put your money where your mouth is. And then they're five, they kind of warned me, we're not gonna really help on your campaign because we have those five initiatives that we're really working on. I've been amazed at the amount of pushback, the tens of thousands of dollars of advertising money that's been poured into trying to keep these people first initiatives from passing, particularly rent control seems like a huge issue that I see a lot of signs. And it's kind of similar to Nestle. Can I turn on a YouTube video without seeing Nestle saying what a good corporate citizen they are for pumping water out of our aquifers, putting them in plastic bottles, trucking them across our roads and then selling them back to us at a profit. It's hard to be up against big money. And I like the idea that by collaborating and working together with other people, that is our strength, listening to each other, helping each other out. Yeah, so I just had, I have a really good masseuse who's part of Black Unmain and she told me, hey, I got a grant to do marketing for my business. She's super excited, yeah. So you guys have been getting grants, I think, or you've had some success with getting some grant money too. Can you talk about that process a little bit? Cause that's kind of a way of people getting some money to do some good things with it. Yeah, well, so the first thing I'll say, just because we have been blessed and we've worked hard to be in a position where we are, first and foremost, I'll say that we are providing grants ourselves. So if you go to blackonmain.com, you can check out the grants. We're actually changing things a little bit, but there's a family grant and a business grant. So that's something worth looking out because for us, by coming into funds and we know how finances, especially in communities of color, like that's something that tends to leave way too quickly. And so for us, we are ourselves providing grants. I will say that Rose is the one who actually writes most of the grants and things like that. So she would have more information, but I know that a lot of it is just finding, well, first of all, it's finding mentors and people in the community who know more about like being a nonprofit, maybe what you should do next, maybe some of the pitfalls. And so sometimes we have calls and she has a mentor. She works with score. So there's people in the state that help support and they can give you ideas and resources. But then it is just finding grants that you qualify for that were the criteria fit with what you kind of your mission. And there's deadlines and you have to give certain information. And it's not, I mean, it's not, doesn't seem like it's super, super difficult. Finding them, I think can be somewhat difficult. We actually just, I guess I won't say what the grant is, but the other day we were having a great conversation with an organization. And for their grant, everything lined up. For them, for instance, they were saying, well, we're really trying to support a small group of women, right? With everything you have going on, if there was a group of women who were making these decisions, this would be a fit and it's this woman and this man. All right, cool. That's not a fit. We'll move on and look for other things. That same organization and the representative who we were speaking to, then told us about five or six more grants that not that we would get. Go check on these. Maybe they might fit you, right? So I think sometimes it's about like stepping into that world, networking, asking a couple of extra questions and also just kind of building rapport with people so that they're okay to just maybe tell you a little bit more than you asked for, things like that. At least so far, that's how I feel like it's been going. But we're definitely looking for more sponsors. We're looking for more grants because as we're out here, we're realizing we can't even execute all the ideas we have. We don't have enough time. We don't have enough money. But if we can create, organize better, create more time, maybe get a couple more people on board as well as have more funds, then we can literally help more people and our pushes can go that much further. So yeah, though we're looking for more, I'd say we've done, we've done all right, donations, grants, fundraising. We, early on, we partnered with CFC, Catalyst for Change. Kyle, they're out there in Bedford. Great organization. They do a lot of different clothes that are really on a positive vibe, really about suicide prevention and awareness, really being strong and being a warrior. I just really appreciate the organization. They approached us and had kind of a personal connection to what we were doing. And so we came together with CFC and Black on Main and we kind of made a couple pieces of merch. Like I deserved, I came up with this phrase, don't talk, act. We printed that on a shirt, don't talk, act. And then we sold a bunch of them and raised a couple thousand dollars in a week because I think people are really looking for something that resonates with them. So I guess that would be the other thing I would say, getting grants definitely matters. But I think also you have to find, you have to find your voice, but you also have to find what resonates with people. Like people really are galvanized and kind of energized right now. And it might not be a million people running, okay, a thousand people running around in the street, importantly right now with signs, but don't think that energy is completely dissipated. So part of what I really think is about like finding how you can dip into it and what is resonating with people, where are they? Like honestly, sometimes people aren't ready for all the change that happened at once. It doesn't mean we're not gonna hold their feet to the fire, but we're trying to create spaces. Like just how I said, we're trying to create spaces for black folks and brown folks to be vibrant and do what they do. We're also learning day by day to create more space for people who are imperfect and people who just now woke up. Well, just cause you just now woke up doesn't mean you're my enemy. I might need to teach you how to be a better ally, but when you wake up it's time to get up, right? So for me, it really is about trying to create those spaces for people to feel okay and to learn and to... So to me, a lot of it is about awareness and then action, but again, don't talk act. It's not about a bunch of arguments. Again, this is why we made that black-owned main. If you wanna vote with your dollars, for instance, one thing you can do is put your dollars into BIPOC businesses. You can do that. You don't have to get permission. You don't have to ask anybody. Sure. Unless you're a minor, just saying. So for me, yeah, really it's about action and getting resources to where they're needed. And that's a lot of what I hear y'all talking about for sure. Appreciate that. I think Luke, I've seen a lot of people that aren't very aware of the water problem. I can remember one time the principal of my school, or maybe he was superintendent by then, wrote a letter to the editor of the paper thanking the Poll and Springs Company for donating water to our school. I was like, dude, that is a marketing ploy of theirs. How do you not see that? It's just an uphill battle, I think. But what kind of resources have you used to kind of help people understand about our water? Yeah, we've had to get creative over the years just because the amount of money Nestle's pouring into our communities and water privatizers in general because of the resources they have are pouring into our communities with marketing campaigns is overwhelming at times. At my middle school, while I was actually there and busy advocating against water privatization in Augusta and stuff like that, Poll and Spring was making significant donations to my school and to the environmental program I was participating in. And that always made me feel super uneasy. So I always took the time to bring it up in and out of class. One of our most successful methods has been simply stickers that say, Stolen Spring. I love those. I have one in my refrigerator. And those have resonated like crazy with people, just getting a very simple, concise message out that Poll and Spring isn't the local good neighbor they present themselves to be. They donate $1,000 here and $1,000 there to libraries, schools and stuff like that, but that's in reality pennies on the dollar of what they're making in profits. They're just here to make themselves look good. So almost every time I've started a conversation with someone who doesn't know about what Poll and Spring is doing, or Nestle is doing, they're like, oh, I only know them from stuff like Project Wet or Education Initiatives about hydrology and the environment, or that they donated to a local organization. But that's the intended effect. People, they want people to think of them as a good neighbor, which in reality, they're definitely not. So yeah, definitely just engaging with people in simple ways that resonate with them like stickers. It's definitely been one of them what successful is. Yeah, it used to be part of this kind of political anti-corporate art troupe that would do this Fourth of July play in West Athens, Maine every year. And it got to be bigger and bigger until it was kind of out of control. But one year when it was about to tip over the edge, there was a float and all it was was some guys on a flatbed truck and they were throwing very, very chilled little small bottles of Poll and Spring's water out into the crowd. They weren't so big that it would like hurt someone if it hit them. I was like, oh, the corporations have found West Athens Fourth of July. Here they are. It's very insidious. As a public school teacher for years, I was appalled at the extent to which corporations like Scholastic or the Gates Foundation and so forth, they just get their tentacles into these public entities that the taxpayers are supporting, don't even get me started on military recruiters. But I always was like, the local taxpayers are struggling to pay the overhead to keep this structure in place. Why are we just giving it away to these multinational wealthy corporate entities? Can I say something real quick? Yeah, please. It was interesting. So I came to the state of Maine specifically to go to Bowdoin College, right? So that was my entry and whoever was there was what I thought. And then later I got into town and was like, oh, there's like Brunswick and cool stuff. But I remember seeing Poll and Spring's almost right off. Didn't know what it was. And I remember people in Maine would say, yeah, that's Maine water. I'm like, oh sweet, okay. It's like a Maine brand. I'm sure Poll and Spring's was like some town or something I haven't been to yet. All right, cool. People are like, oh yeah, Maine's got good water. Cool. And over time as I'm drinking Poll and Spring's and hearing about it, I remember the first time someone said, well, you know, Poll and Spring's just kind of messed up. And I was like, what? You mean I thought this was the good Maine water? Like, I'm from Texas, right? I seriously have no, I'm just like, why would you say that? Everyone else says, they were like, yeah, but like, they're just like taking the good Maine water and then just like selling it to us. And I was like, that's weird. Oh, wow. But to y'all's point and I see what you're saying, that's a weird thing. They don't want people to think about that vibe. The vibe is like you said, I'm your neighbor, things like that. And I mean, I guess that's what corporations do, but it's one of those things that I feel like we should be aware of for sure. Absolutely. Did they donate water? Did Poll and Spring's or Nestle donate any water when the encampment was there? No, plenty of community members did though, but no corporations, that's for sure. It's one of the things I always struggle with, like I feel bad about when there's something going on like that. It was super hot when they were camped out on City Hall. And I used to bring ice down. And I kind of felt bad about it because again, you're turning water into a commodity, but it was desperately needed. And there were all these pallets of shrink wrap, plastic bottled water, but they don't even provide porta-potties for unhoused people in the city of Portland to use. They certainly don't provide like showers or clean running water or anything. So, yeah. Yeah, I know, it was crazy too during that encampment. There were a lot of people who were finding out about, hey, there's this thing going on up at City Hall. They were living down in the park. People were getting heat stroke. It was hot out. And if we hadn't been there with those, like the medic tent and the supply tent with cold water and popsicles, how many people would have died in the summer and that, you know, now we're in the winter, it's cold, that same risk is still there. And there's just questions like, where are certain people going to go? Or how are they gonna stay warm in the daytime? Or, you know, if you're gonna use this facility now that was closed because it wasn't safe around COVID, why is it now safe for this other part of our community and not the, you know, so it's, it was just a really eye-opening experience to really see how many like deaths or harm was prevented in that encampment. And I think that was something that didn't get highlighted enough is that like, that was a protest, but it was also like a necessity for some people to get through like the heat. And, you know, the water is a big thing. You know, like I've been out to Flint two years ago where they're having a huge water crisis that's been going on year after year. You know, that's one of our main things is like when we deliver water to people, we don't wanna buy it from Nestle. So, and you can find companies that are not owned by Nestle. It's, you know, it still sucks that it's privatized, but it's, there are smaller businesses that you can like vote with your dollars. And you know, I love that philosophy, whether it's like, where do you get your clothes? Are you, you know, buying your burgers at a local business or at McDonald's? And, you know, that's the way every day that you can use your vote with your dollars for your morals and your priorities. And, you know, stop funding the people hurting us too. And it's a really important mindset to like inspire in people is that like, you know, we vote every year on November 3rd, but like, what do you do in the rest of the year? Like, are you shopping at H&M where children are being abused on the other side of the world? Or are you gonna buy from someone on, you know, like the black owned main directory that's keeping money in our community? So it's, you know, it's really good when you collaborate because you can really like show people how many alternatives there are to these bad things that exist. Yeah, it's one of the things my campaign talked about early on, we bought some Facebook advertising. It's pretty cheap and you can target, you know. And then as we race more money and realized, okay, now we're ready to have like a real advertising campaign. So many of us were like, we don't wanna advertise on Facebook. Facebook is a bad influence in our society. And, you know, I know Adam, you use it, I use it. It's, you know, it's kind of a necessary evil in terms of communications. And, but we were like, we do not wanna be sending money to those people. Let's keep the money in Maine. And of course, when the pandemic hit, a lot of main based journalism, like they are struggling because their ad revenues fell off and a lot of layoffs and, you know, our press coordinator, Sam was saying, you know, a lot of these papers aren't even gonna be in existence a year from now. So we made a decision like, okay, let's spend all our ad dollars in Maine to support Maine media and, you know, reach the people that we need to reach. And I know what sometimes good creative is a substitute for media that you can't afford. Take Back the Tap is a slogan that I heard years ago, maybe even before I heard of you Luke, that I always thought was a pretty intelligent way to redirect people back to, you have a public water supply. And if you're not in a city like Flint, where they like took over the city government and put it into like a private receivership and then that manager, you know, made a bad decision about where they were gonna draw the water from. And it corroded their old pipes and lead got into the water. And then pediatricians started realizing these kids have lead poisoning. And, you know, it's just a, if you haven't read that book with the ice, can't see by Dr. Mona Hanna Atisha. I recommend it highly. But is Take Back the Tap still like part of what community water justice is working on? I think fundamentally like when what we're talking about in terms of like keeping water ownership in the hands of the people. Yes, in terms of like the specific phrase we haven't used that in our messaging lately, but it's definitely like, you know, I remember hearing Take Back the Tap a lot, especially when I was a much younger activist. And I think that's, you know, definitely the message still remains true in our organizing today. So yeah, for sure. When I was helping high school students learn how to write grant applications and they had identified, we want to get those kind of drinking fountains that you can fill up your water bottle at, you know, they're designed to do that. You just stick the water, and it counts, it gives you a count of how many plastic bottles you didn't use. The kids that raised the money and wrote the successful grant wanted to put, get out, Take Back the Tap on the bottles because they thought it was a cool slogan. And the principal, I think it was that same guy, was like, well, it sounds too much like beer, so we can't have that. But this whole idea that Nestle has put, you know, millions of dollars into convincing people like the water that comes out of your tap, it's not really good drinking water. And then they do scientific studies where they look at, they test the quality of water that comes out of bottles and comes out of the tap, and the water that comes out of the tap is usually better, way better. Some bottled water is just literally taken out of taps and put into, so, you know, there's reality and then there's advertising, but I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't admit I used to work in advertising. I think what people perceive to be the truth is often more powerful than what is the truth. Talk to me a little bit about Black-owned Maine advertising or marketing, messaging. Do you guys help with that? Do, is there like a peer support network where businesses help each other or? Well, one thing that came to mind as I jump into that, you know, part of what you just talked about is advertising, marketing, and you see this like trickery. And I think it's important to also admit out loud that, you know, influence in this world is real, but also the reasons that you influence people, what you try to influence them to do, whether or not you have their best interest in mind as you influence them, all of that matters, right? I'm just saying, advertising isn't inherently evil, marketing isn't evil, selling things to people isn't evil. We need our economy to spin around so that we all, right, I don't know, can't get cool shoes if they don't make cool shoes, right? But is it manipulation? Are you worried about? Are you considering what this will mean and impact on the other end? So I'm just saying to me, that's just a critical thing to point out. When it comes to black-owned main, we, I mean, in one sense, at our core, we are a marketing company, right? You know, what we do is we put the word out about things and we spread awareness and we challenge things and we bring knowledge and awareness to people who maybe hadn't been paid so much attention to before. So we are, I mean, that's our world as well. You know, I can say that we've been able to achieve what we have without paying for any Facebook or Instagram marketing or anything like that. It's all been organic, which is a bit mind-blowing for me. But at the same time, I think there was a need, there was a void and we were the thing to fill it. Definitely a lot of content creation in what we do. I've now, when I meet people, so I'm a content creator. I wouldn't have said that a year ago because now I'm understanding how important it is to capture different things and to share them and then to also make it palatable or beautiful or engaging for people. And to me, again, a lot of those things point to advertising and marketing, but you know, we just, for us, it's about engaging people. It's about keeping their attention. It's about, again, sometimes challenging them. I remember around, I believe it was around Juneteenth, we had a post, I did like a little editing but really it was Rose who made the post and it got shared like over a thousand times, maybe even like 1700 times all over, not just in Maine. And it was just this infographic, a couple layers deep on a carousel, just talking about some of the race reality and again, Juneteenth is, people talk about the Fourth of July and the celebration of America and stuff and then they forget where Black people were, specifically in America, on that independence day. They weren't independent, right? And so Black people have Juneteenth, which I believe should be celebrated fervently by all Americans, but a lot of people just don't know about it or care. Or, oh, that's another time Black people try to change something and make it, blah, blah, blah. Okay, but we just gave people some straight up facts and you just find people really voraciously hungry for facts, not like spin, not per se what they always see on the news. Like somebody teach me something because they're not teaching it to you in school, unfortunately. I don't think I was ever taught about Juneteenth in school, I was definitely an adult, pretty old adult by the time I ever even heard of it, I would say. Adam, a lot of the work that you do with the community organizations that you're in is exactly the front facing, putting the message out and what are the challenges of that work? Well, you know, stigma's a big one that I find issues get stigmatized, populations get stigmatized, even solutions get stigmatized. You know, when we talk about overdose prevention sites, the common things, oh, you just wanna give people drugs or you wanna enable their addiction, not realizing that there's actual evidence that shows diseases go down and people, more people get sober and less people die. So, you know, like stigma is like a multi-layer problem. You know, whether it's the people with substance use disorder or the issue itself and housing too, you know, a lot of times they'll hear go, why don't they just get a job? Well, a lot of the people there do have jobs and they live in a tent and they go to work every day. It's a miracle in my opinion that people have that kind of persistence. But like, you know, if you take yourself outside that box, like you really see like the lunacy of like how strong and perseverant like these individuals are and yet they're being talked to like they're lazy or don't care enough or maybe they don't deserve a hand up out of this situation that like a lot of people fall into homelessness because no fault of their own. You know, your building gets sold, they can kick everyone out of the building and there might not be enough apartments for you to find one next thing, you know, you're living in your car. So it's like kind of like you said, like the messaging, the optics, like people want to know facts, you know, not the spin. You know, one thing that like is really important to me too is like to not be divisive when presenting the facts, you know, we're, we see so much division and people at each other over the deferring beliefs or opinions on things. And, you know, the common thread is that, you know, the elected officials that we're hiring to fix problems in our society aren't fixing them. And, you know, I hate seeing people blaming each other because the officials aren't solving problems. So, you know, when you present things with the facts and the no spin, it becomes a lot easier to bring people together around a common goal like ending homelessness or, you know, ending a war on drugs. That's really just a war on American people that has disproportionately affected, you know, like the BIPOC communities or the unhoused communities. And we have to be working together as the people to solve these things. And like when we can like look to ourselves as the solution, like that's the, that's when things will really change for everyone. It always seems weird to me that we stigmatize poverty yet hoarding wealth is admirable in late stage capitalism. Like that's just hoarding, you know? And if you, you know, if you would provide a guaranteed basic income to people, they would spend that money in the community. They would pay their rent. They would buy groceries and clothes and so forth. You give more money to Jeff Bezos at Amazon and he just hoards it. And it doesn't go back into the economy. So it's a weird, you know, we've been sold a very strange outlook on life, I think to kind of keep these systems in place. And it's pretty clear that our corporate overlords would rather see a civil war than a revolution because they're afraid the people are gonna become, so austerity is just gonna become so extreme that the people are gonna say, what else do we have to lose and rise up? So I think that a lot of mass media, corporate media is purposely pitting groups against each other and making us think that, you know, all of us have far more in common with each other than we do with, you know, trillionaire over there, but we're sold all kinds of crazy ideas. And I always like to say they're manufactured problems and issues, you know, homelessness at least. There's something like five or 10 empty houses in America right now per person that doesn't have a home. Like homelessness shouldn't exist. There's a, so you really look at these problems like these issues are being created then these people are profiting off of the solution to these issues. So there's no incentive to solve the problems. And the media has just become the tool to make sure we're distracted enough that we don't get it and, you know, divide and conquer it's historically the most effective way to prevent change. And I wish more people would just look up how that is done to populations and communities so you can understand when it's happening and defy those tactics. Cause it happens to everyone in places like this. You're reminding me that we did a webinar back when everybody really was staying home all the time on homelessness. And we had Sherry Honkalo was one of the presenters and she's been working in Philadelphia for years with, she was a single mom that became homeless and she ended up breaking into a vacant house and just living in it saying, I got kids here I gotta take care of them. So now she's part of a community group that actually supports people and enables people and powers people to do that. And they send emissaries out. If you invite them to Portland, they will come and work with your community to learn how to, you know, kind of take over housing that's not being used because people are hoarding it and other, you know, people are sleeping outside in the cold. So crazy problems sometimes require solutions that might seem a little crazy cause they're out of the box. But then when you think them through they seem fairly reasonable. So we are nearing the end of our time. This has been a great conversation. I wonder if you would think about folks that are listening at home or that will listen to this recorded. If you could do one ask of them to help make the world a better place. You don't even have to stick to your issue or your organizations if you don't want to but one ask that you would make of your fellow humans right now. What would that be? You wanna go first, Luke? Sure, yeah. I would recommend paying attention to local politics. You know, recently national politics of course have been an incredibly divisive and exhausting scene to pay attention to. You're one of the few figures who's giving me hope right now in terms of the national political scene. And I think local politics are aware a lot of immediate and sustainable changes can be made. Having friendly water district members or school board members or city council members can make a tremendous difference in a number of local campaigns whether you're paying attention to racial justice organizing that's going on right here in Portland or water justice organizing that was happening in my hometown of Freiburg a few years ago and other communities across Maine that are resisting water privatizers. So I would ask that you reach out to local organizations, just ask what you can do to help. We really have to think globally and act locally. And yeah, and just support local campaigns and organizations mutual aid is really important. Yeah. Have you run for office yet? No, I'm actually working. You think you will? I don't know yet. I'm actually right now I'm working on a city, Portland school board campaign for Nylat Billy for school board at large. But yeah, I don't know for myself. I definitely like the grassroots organizing element, but yeah. Oh yeah, well yeah, thank you, that's it. Sure. Adam, what would be your ask of our listeners at home? I would challenge viewers today to do just one good deed every day for somebody in need, whether it's small or big. There's a saying that's kind of circulated on the internet and meme format, small acts of kindness when multiplied by millions of people could change the world. So while we're fighting all these causes which are clearly long processes and take time, we can all reduce harm for each other and alleviate suffering by just being the best neighbors and community members we can be. And the nicer and more loving we are and give back to each other, the more tolerable it's going to be waiting and fighting for these changes. So I think that's a really important one. Great, thank you. Wow. Jerry? Those are good, okay. High standard here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all right. What I'm thinking, an analogy that I use often to help people to better understand systemic issues, systemic change. I had a good friend down from Texas who one day we were going back and forth and he was like, man, people always say systemic. Like just what does that really mean? Wow, honest question, honest question. Just because people throw these words out, you know, like all the words in the Pledge of Allegiance. How old were you when you knew what all those words meant? Right? How many times did you say them before that? Anyway, so I'm not even gonna jump into that but the point I'm making is that people need to think more systemically. You have to understand these issues, everything you've been talking about, not just your last argument on Facebook or the people that you saw protesting or just the last meme you saw. Those are all the ends of the tendrils hanging but in reality there's this whole thing that's creating all of that, right? Going to a protest and screaming at someone's face is important but there's a whole system that created whatever it is. So my advice is to start to pay attention to systems, not just your favorite politicians, not just your favorite news source. I often look at opposing news sources and then meditate on the fact that the truth is somewhere in the middle. None of them are gonna tell me the truth. Some of them don't even know the truth. Think systemically. Don't just jump into arguments, don't just try to change people's minds, understand systems and then work like the people on this stage seriously to effect systemic change. Analogy wise I try to tell people if you go to the doctor and you have a little rash right here, they're gonna be like, hey, here's some ointment to go right here because there's a localized issue. A week later the rash is gone. What if someone unfortunately is diagnosed with leukemia and throughout their bloodstream there are different cancerous agents? No salve on a spot is gonna fix that or counteract that. They have to take chemicals into their body, that radiation, right? Because to attack something systemically your approach has to be systemic, right? So I just wanna say that out loud, learn to think more systemically, stop just arguing with individuals, study systems. I love that, that's exactly the way I think and I think some people are big picture thinkers and some people are more, and I respect both ways of thinking and some of us get a lot done doing one and some of us get a lot done doing the other but my ask is gonna be something incredibly tiny of people listening, so small. I've been organizing around climate and militarism around the military budget about pushing back on recruitment in high schools and retiring native mascots that were demeaning stereotypes and all sorts of issues and I've been usually a communications person in those movements as those are kind of my strengths but I've marched, I've met with my elected officials, I've protested, I've gotten arrested, I've done petitions, I've written letters, I've called people and started groups and so forth. I've done a lot of things to try to change and sometimes it works and sometimes you have a little success and sometimes you're up against something much bigger than yourself but when people kinda came to me a year ago, summer and said, would you consider running for the US Senate against Susan Collins as a green under rank choice it's rank choice voting, it's a game changer, that it's not the false dichotomy first past the post, you wouldn't be a spoiler, in fact you'd be bringing more progressive voice into the race and giving people something to get more excited about and stuff. So I had not, I mean I'd been an elected union official before like union negotiator but I had never run for elected office and it's been quite an experience, a big learning experience certainly but that leads me to my ask and my ask is this, the tiniest thing I did this year, the tiniest political act was the other day I voted in my pajamas, I had to move from my home in Solon because there isn't enough broadband internet to Zoom where I live up in the second district in the like foothills of the Western mountains and so I've been staying with friends in Bath, my husband came down for the weekend, he had brought me my absentee ballot and I marked it and I handed it back to him and he took it, he hand carried it back to the town clerk because I can support the post office other ways this year, I'm a little leery of mailing my ballot in but that's like the smallest political act I'll do this year, it's tiny, it's not gonna change much of anything for me to mark that one, rank myself first, whatever but it's so crucial because if I don't do it and you don't do it and they don't do it then we end up with people will blame a spoiler candidate but really it's all the people that didn't vote Maine has high voter turnout and we maybe get like 60% it's looking like this year might be record turnout in part because it's easier to vote this year because of the pandemic and absentee voting so I'm gonna urge everybody to make a plan to vote if you haven't done it already, make a plan. Do you guys have a plan to vote? I've already voted. You already voted? I'm actually literally someone just messes me because we're figuring out a plan tonight. Cool. Yes. And Luke, are you old enough to vote yet? Nope, I'm still a senior in high school, not yet, just a few months off. All right. Well, you're doing an awful lot as a senior in high school and I appreciate all of you being here with me. This has been a great conversation. It's so nice to meet you, Jerry, and thanks for coming all this way to be with us, Luke and Adam, always a pleasure. I think this is three nights in a row. We've been in action together when we were the other so thanks everybody for listening in and please share this and we hope to see you soon. Take care. Thanks guys. Good job.