2025 Spring Newsletter

Handful of Salt

Volume XLVIIII, Number 1 – Spring 2025

Included in this issue:

Young Activist Leaders Program

2025-2026 Priorities

Action Conference!

Member Gatherings

Young Activist Leaders Program:
Powerful, Impactful Voices

Written by Nico Jaggar, Youth Organizer

Since the 80’s, the Peace and Justice Action League has had multiple forms of a youth-based program. In 2011, we re-launched under the name Young Activist Leaders Program- or YALP! YALP is now a 9-week paid internship program, run twice a year by our Youth Organizers to ensure a curated experience for our participants. The purpose of this program is to build leadership skills, support youth-led organizing across the movement, offer space for youth to connect with like-minded individuals, and increase youth engagement and leadership within PJALS.

The 2025 Spring Young Activist Leaders Program is already underway! Having begun February 7th, our registrants have explored the 10 Things Every Activist Should Know (If you’re unsure what that means, check out our conference workshops, and sign up!), Orientation, Approaches to Change, and more! We even practiced a chant while showcasing our Values Banners groups created to identify shared goals and values. You can find the video on our Instagram!

With a heavy focus on militarism and its effects on our world, we’ll be collecti1vely planning and implementing a very exciting event… a Tax Day Action! We’ll be curating this event with our lovely YALP registrants, giving them a chance to boost their voices and make this event their own. Each workshop will focus on skillbuilding necessary to plan an event, and we’ll be putting those skills into action. We’re ecstatic to see how our YALPistas personalize this event to highlight what matters to them.

Often, being a young person in this world comes with feeling unheard, undervalued or flat-out ignored. The youth of our country have powerful, impactful voices that must be heard if we’re to work toward a better tomorrow. YALP is a wonderful opportunity for young folks to learn the skills to amplify their own voices. We’re very excited – and honored– to continue working with these amazing individuals!

Often, being a young person in this world comes with feeling unheard, undervalued or flat-out ignored. The youth of our country have powerful, impactful voices that must be heard if we’re to work toward a better tomorrow. YALP is a wonderful opportunity for young folks to learn the skills to amplify their own voices. We’re very excited – and honored – to continue working with these amazing individuals!

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2025-2026 PJALS Priorities

In December and January, 196 people responded to the 2025-2026 Member Priority Survey! Thank you to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts! Our Steering Committee uses the Member Survey results and an intersectional racial equity lens to set priorities on a two-year cycle.

Key Survey Results

We are a cross-class, intergenerational, multiracial, LGBTQ-inclusive community.

• Racial identity: 19% of the respondents self-identified as Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color.  74% self-identified as white. 7% answered other or didn’t respond.
• Gender identity: 51% of respondents self-identified as cisgender women, 18% as cisgender men, 10% as trans or gender nonconforming, and 20% answered other or didn’t respond.
• Sexuality: 26% of respondents self-identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer.
• Age and Income: The respondents shared a wide range of ages and incomes.

We are united in our priorities, with some difference in answers when broken out by race:

• Countering white Christian nationalism and US fascism (38% of white respondents, 30% of BIPOC respondents)
• Advocating and protecting human rights (32% of white respondents, 38% of BIPOC respondents)
• Countering US imperialism and militarism (13% of white respondents, 14% of BIPOC respondents)
• Ending mass incarceration and increasing police accountability (12% of white respondents, 14% of BIPOC respondents)

We and our loved ones are impacted in a range of ways by the problems our work addresses, most especially in these top 3 ways:

• Emotionally / mentally affected by the state of the country and world (49% of white respondents, 35% of BIPOC respondents)
• Living in or near poverty or economic insecurity. (40% of white respondents, 54% of BIPOC respondents)
• White nationalist or Christian dominionist organizing, including seeing family members drawn into conspiracy thinking (33% of white respondents, 41% of BIPOC respondents)

2025-2026 Plans

Our Steering Committee and staff met to consider and discuss survey results, ground ourselves in our values, envision the impact we want to make, and name strategies we’ll use to achieve our goals. The Steering Committee affirmed these priority goals:

Advocating and protecting human rights: We will build community capacity to resist and defy targeting of immigrant and queer/trans communities in the Spokane area, educating and raising consciousness about the attacks as tactics of imperialism and white Christian nationalism.

Countering white Christian nationalism: We will educate about and expose white Christian nationalism and how it shows up in our region, so we know how to counter and disrupt it, including naming the ways it is actively harming everyone and the ways we support and/or benefit from it.

Countering US imperialism and militarism: We will educate and engage the community about the impact of US military spending, military recruitment, weapon production and sales, and the effect of US imperialism – currently focusing on Gaza, West Bank and Panama Canal, etc.

Ending Mass Incarceration & Increasing Police Accountability: We will mobilize members to hold law enforcement accountable to protect immigrant, refugee, and other targeted communities’ civil rights and liberties.

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Join Us at the Action Conference!

Our annual Peace & Justice Action Conference is the largest event in the Inland Northwest region for activists to sharpen skills, deepen analysis, and strengthen relationships. This year’s theme Empowered Together: Collective Action for a Just Future invites activists, community organizers, and advocates from across the Inland Northwest and beyond to unite for a transformative experience focused on peace, justice, and collective liberation.

To sharpen your activism skills, gain new insights into social justice issues, or forge connections that will strengthen your work, Empowered Together is the place to be. We believe that, through collective action, we can create the future we want to see: a future that is just, sustainable, and free from oppression. Join us as we gather to strategize, inspire, and empower one another. Together we can build a just future for all. We hope to see you there!

Conference Tracks: