Are you interested in an opportunity to learn how to join Quakers in PYM working to bring an end to gun violence?
Are you familiar with PYM Collaboratives? These are groups of Friends from more than one local meeting who come together around shared ideas and leadings. They organize projects, activities, and events that strengthen our community. PYM Collaboratives make our yearly meeting more dynamic, community-focused, and interconnected. By bringing together the gifts, skills, and ministries of Friends, they create spaces for shared witness and action. Some resources are available to support their work under the care of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Approved by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 2023, the Friends Ending Gun Violence Collaborative (FEGV) welcomes individuals and meetings across the Yearly Meeting to build a network committed to ending gun violence in our communities. This work reflects a contemporary expression of our historic Peace Testimony.
The invitation is provided by the FEGV.
Authorship of this invitation is attributed to The Friends Ending Gun Violence Collaborative of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
February 28, 2025
Dear Friends,
The Friends Ending Gun Violence Collaborative (FEGV) is a newly formed group within Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. As Quakers, we are called to live out the testimony of peace. Gun violence challenges the foundation of that testimony, claiming over 40,000 lives annually in the United States. The Friends Ending Gun Violence Collaborative seeks to engage all those in the Yearly Meeting who share this concern and create ways for meetings and individuals to act.
FEGV has a unique partnership with Heeding God’s Call to End Gun Violence, the grassroots and interfaith organization devoted to ending gun violence. Heeding God’s Call grew out of a 2009 peace conference held at Arch Street Meeting House in which the historic peace churches came together; an outgrowth of the conference is a commitment to end gun violence by halting the sale and distribution of illegal handguns.
We’d like to share our work with you and invite you and your meeting to join us in a Zoom call on Tuesday, March 25 at 7:00 PM. Learn about our efforts in Bucks County, South Jersey, and Chester County. Hear what’s happening in New York Yearly Meeting. Find out how you and your meeting can get involved. Please circulate the registration link below. The sign-up link is also posted on the Yearly Meeting calendar.
Sincerely,
Friends Ending Gun Violence Collaborative
Martha Bryans, Downingtown
Pam Yaller, Upper Dublin
Pat Findley, Old Haverford
Bryan Miller
David Austin, Medford
Jayson Massey, Germantown
Molly Hicks, Old Haverford
Peter Murchison, NYYM
Meg Lytton, Haverford
David Nuttall
The letter is available for download and can be shared with your meeting here.
