As the RFC’s first year of new leadership under Jenn Meeropol proceeds, we’re focusing a lot of attention on strengthening our links to a younger generation of progressive activists and their allies. Part of that process involves experimenting with new styles of outreach. Our efforts are aimed at both online and in-person networks, and we’re pursuing many different avenues for making those connections.

My book group almost exclusively reads fiction; usually political fiction, often written by women. In general, I prefer reading novels rather than non-fiction, so I was surprised by how moved I was by the first non-fiction book my group read this year: Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon (http://andrewsolomon.com/books/far-from-the-tree/).

We woke up this morning to the news that Pete Seeger had died.

My (Robert’s) first memory of Pete was seeing him and the rest of the Weavers at Carnegie Hall just before Christmas in 1955.   I was eight years old.  My parents, Abel and Anne Meeropol, who knew the Seegers, took me to visit them at their home in the Hudson River Valley of New York the following year.

Thanks to all who joined us on January 12, 2014, for the premiere screening of CARRY IT FORWARD: Celebrate the Children of Resistance. This 90-minute film presented a condensed version of the June 2013 theatrical event staged at Town Hall in New York City, that commemorated the 60th anniversary of Ethel and Julius Rosenbergs’ executions.

My most recent blogs have focused on possible new directions for the RFC. I also shared a lovely letter from a beneficiary family expressing their appreciation for aid for their young daughter. And they explained why, now that the crisis had passed for them, they chose to not request support this fall in the hopes that it would leave funds available for other families in more immediate need of assistance.