Join us at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 4 for our monthly meeting. Leaders from the local chapter of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and Live4Lali, a local nonprofit dedicated to helping families facing drug addiction, will be on hand for a discussion on what we can do to improve mental health services in the Palatine area. Grocery card food drive for Palatine fire victims: on March 19, dozens of Palatine residents were displaced when a fire at their apartment building caused the roof to collapse. Despite a community-wide effort to help those families, their need is still ongoing. Rather than a food drive, we are collecting grocery gift cards so the families affected can purchase needed items. You can drop off your gift card donation at the May 4 meeting. We will turn the gift cards over to All Saints Food Pantry, which operates the food pantry at Partners for Our Communities. Kindly sign up for the May 4 meeting on Mental Health Issues here. The meeting will be 7 to 8:30 p.m. at GPAD offices, 1310 W. Northwest Hwy, Arlington Heights. 

Learn what we can do to unite against hate. Cook County Commissioners Scott Britton, Kevin Morrison and Maggie Trevor will share information about the Cook County United Against Hate program. Come meet other Democrats and progressives and find out how we can help make our corner of the world a better place. Sign up here.

Make sure you vote in the April 4 Municipal Elections--the people elected for local offices will have an outsized impact on our daily lives. School board races are especially crucial: there are people on the ballot in both Palatine District 15 and High School District 211 who want to ban books and deny the dignity of our diverse school districts. Turnout is very, very low in these spring municipal races, so a minority of people can sway an election. For instance, in Township High School District 211, there are twelve people listed on the ballot for four seats on the 7-person board. (Two people have withdrawn, but because they missed the deadline for withdrawing, their names will still be on the ballot, pulling votes.)The people who want to ban books have their four candidates, and they will unite around those four. But there is a very high risk that the rest of us voters will scatter our votes around the remaining eight candidates, diluting our vote and allowing the book-banners to win the election and control the school board for the next four years. If we don't want to turn District 211 into a mini-Florida, voters need to unite around the same four candidates. Do your research!