SEPTEMBER 25, 2020 - I’m happy to be back with you this week! Thanks to all who take time to read my weekly column. I enjoy communicating with you.

This week, I want to talk about an awesome organization called Poor People’s Campaign. Founded in 1968 amid the civil rights movement, it was organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Initially beginning as a march on Washington, D.C., and other cities by poor people demanding fairer treatment, the organization has grown into a movement of people fighting for their rights regarding many issues of concern. It is a movement with muscle.

I am proud that SKIL and I partner with Poor People’s Campaign on occasion. They helped organize the Medicaid protest we attended at the Topeka State Capitol in March. And on October 3, 2020 we will join them again in Pittsburg for one of the Medicaid Marches being held across Kansas the week of September 28, again advocating for the expansion of Medicaid in our state.

The October 3rd March will start at 10 a.m. outside of the Pittsburg SKIL office at 216-D N. Broadway in Pittsburg and walk to nearby Senator Jerry Moran’s office. It will last at least an hour. SKIL employee Andy Rausch, a Medicaid heart transplant recipient, will be among the speakers at this event.

It is exciting to be working with Poor People’s Campaign to bring public awareness to the issues regarding our state not expanding Medicaid. Medicaid expansion would allow many people who work as personal care attendants to have access to medical coverage that, in return, would help people level the playing field when finding attendants. Many times good, caring individuals will have to leave their jobs as caregivers to get health insurance. This leaves a shortage in attendants.

Please join us October 3rd and help us raise support for Medicaid expansion. This will be a peaceful, legal, non-violent protest in accordance with our Constitutional rights as citizens. We will encourage participants to wear masks and we will be respectful of social distancing.

For more information, please contact Pittsburg SKIL’s Christina Blair, the local contact person for the Medicaid March, at the Pittsburg SKIL office: 620-231-6780 or toll-free: 1-866-927-6780.

I hope to see you there!

Love, Shari