SEQUIM — March for Our Lives rallies on the North Olympic Peninsula have been combined to be conducted in Sequim on Saturday.
The rally and march will be from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, with participants gathering at the intersection of Sequim Avenue and East Washington Street in downtown Sequim, according to Marsha Maquire, an organizer.
All members of the public are welcome to join the action hosted by Indivisible Sequim and Indivisible Port Townsend, which originally had scheduled a rally in Port Townsend. Carpools are expected from Port Townsend to Sequim.
With or without signs, participants will march down Washington Avenue for few blocks and then march back to hear speakers such as Ruby Coulson, a student at Sequim High School and a member of the Washington State Legislative Youth Advisory Council, and Damon Little, a 2018 Port Angeles High School graduate who is the co-founder of Washington State Teens for Gun Reform.
Also expected to speak are Brian Grad, a Sequim gun owner; hosts Marsha Maguire of Indivisible Sequim and Tim Wheeler of Voices for Health and Healing; Kevin Schilling, staffer for U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer, who represents the 6th Congressional District, which includes the Peninsula; Stan Riddle, a Port Angeles gun owner and member of Alliance for Gun Responsibility (but speaking for himself); an informal message of support from state Sen. Kevin Van De Wege and Bruce Cowan of Port Townsend.
Others also may speak, Wheeler said.
The rally will join some 300 others nationwide planned to call for a change in gun laws and restrictions.
March For Our Lives is a youth-led movement that was created after the 2018 shooting at a Parkland, Fla., school that killed 17 students and teachers.
It had its first march in 2018 and is hosting one on Saturday in Washington, D.C.
On May 22, 19 fourth-grade students and two teachers were killed in a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Rallies planned in the state of Washington include those in Bainbridge Island, Longview, Moses Lake, Olympia, Woodinville, Richland, Everett, Vancouver, Bremerton, Redmond, Bellingham and Lake Forest Park, according to the Tacoma News-Tribune.
In Sequim, public parking is available just to the northeast of the intersection and on area city streets.
Organizers said the rally is “part of a nationwide outpouring demanding that Congress act now to curb gun violence before another massacre.
“After countless mass shootings and instances of gun violence in our communities, it’s time to take back to the streets and march for our lives,” they noted.
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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.
