April 4, 2012

Two days ago, Tapestry Health and over 1,000 people joined The Caring Force at the State House! Below is an excerpt describing the rally from The Caring Force's website. You can read the entire article here. You can also view photos on Facebook.

"Blowing away all expectations, more than 1,000 members of The Caring Force flooded the State House, actually forcing security to shut down the building for a short period due to capacity limits. Even more took to the internet to amplify our message through our virtual rally. And lawmakers heard the message.

In fact, Senate President Therese Murray gave us her commitment that as soon as she can find the funding, she will direct it back to human services.

And you should be proud to know that she also said she is proud to stand with us in our fight, telling rally attendees that our sector "has the most passionate advocates, who understand the issues and the process, and they have not given up, and they will not give up."

The rally's program featured direct care workers, the family member of someone receiving services, a self-advocate, as well as Senate President Murray, Sen. Karen Spilka, Rep. Ruth Balser, and Rep. David Linsky.

The excitement from the rally helped us gain coverage from State House News, WWLP, AP, MetroWest Daily News, and Patch.

And thank you to all of the advocates who took our rallying cry to Twitter: our hashtag -- #CareRally -- generated 115 tweets that created 117,562 impressions, and reached an audience of 42,893 followers within the past 24 hours!"

Thank you again for all that you do to make us such a powerful force for supporting human services!"