We are grateful for our volunteers. We are grateful for all of you who have joined the family of child advocates to support our shared vision of a community where all children grow up safe, healthy, and well-educated.

Again this year, you have helped children overcome obstacles to find better paths to their futures. You have stood up for children and spoken out for them. You have imagined their possibilities and you have contributed to unlocking their potential.

Thank you.

But in our gratitude, we must also remember that there is still much work to do, and, after our recent election, our challenges might be even greater.

I find a vital touchstone of hope in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s echo of the words of the 19th Century Transcendentalist Theodore Parker, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

More currently, attorney and justice advocate Bryan Stevenson talks about hope as one of the four vital elements of work for justice. We must remain hopeful. We must keep showing up for children, standing beside children, and speaking out for children to give them voices that will be heard. We must follow Stevenson’s other guidance: get close to the children we serve so we understand them and their unique lives, change the narrative told by others about the children we know and understand, and say and do uncomfortable things to bring them justice – one by one and as a group.

We owe that to the people who came before us in this work. We owe that to ourselves. Above all, we owe that to the children, to our children, to all children.