Joan Hoffman

Evansville, IN

For several months now there've been a group of people in our town who have been meeting to talk about issues that occur in our community, having to do with criminal justice, having to do with race, having to do with poverty. We've talked and talked and we think it's now time to have action, so we have planned a community dialogue where we can bring these issues to the entire community to not only talk about, but take action. That will be on October 24th at the Fine Arts Center in Henderson. We're bringing a key-note speaker in, Lisa Sharon Harper, who... 

Sr. Simone (off-camera): Oh! She's fabulous!

Hoffman: Good, good. She's coming to speak. She's to be our key-note speaker. She's from Sojournersand she's going to take these issues and talk about them. Then, we're going to divide into groups.One group is going to talk about how black and white people can work together for justice. Another group is going to rethink poverty. The other group is...

(Woman next to speaker whispers the word 'education')

Hoffman: will have to do with education, youth, and how poverty...

Sr. Simone (off-camera): Wonderful.

Hoffman: affects those. Then, we will come back and...Oh, those groups aren't going to leave those groups until they have an action plan.

(Crowd laughs.)

Sr. Simone (off-camera): Alright!

Hoffman: That's the only way they're going to be able to leave the Fine Arts Center...because we don't want to talk these issues to death. We want to do something. We're going to have our judges. We're going to have our police chief, our sheriff, our business leaders...

Sr. Simone (off-camera): Fantastic!

Hoffman: all together to talk about this. Then we're going to come back for a panel discussion and a call to action. So that's going to be going on here. We're inviting any of y'all who'd like to come on the 24th to talk with us. It'll be great.