Thank you all very much, To Elder Gerard and all the faith leaders who are with us, thank you for bringing together your congregations,
Will Baker, Deb Flateman, Jana Davis, Cassie Benjamin and everyone with the important organizations who are partnering on this effort, a special work of thanks to all of you and to your teams as well, I understand there are materials available in the back explaining about how your groups are contributing to these efforts.
It's been said that, quote "there is incredible power in a community of people who are together because they care, and who are motivated by the ideals of compassion and creativity."
Throughout the final weekend in September, we'll be coming together as a community -- as Marylanders and Virginians, West Virginians and Washingtonians, as members of many great and diverse faiths -- to harness this incredible power.
Here in our State, our One Maryland, we consider ourselves pro-growth Americans. What do I mean by that? We believe in growing jobs and growing opportunity. We believe in children growing healthy, growing educated, and growing strong. We believe in grandparents growing old with dignity and with love. We believe in growing trees, growing sustainable Bay fisheries, growing food locally to feed our citizens. We believe in growing prosperity for every
generation,
Growing in our understanding of one another, growing in our compassion for one another, growing in our respect for the human dignity of every individual and gowing in our appreciation for the fragility and interdependence of the other living species and living systems of this one earth that we share.
And therefore, we believe in the responsibility we share as individuals and as members of this larger community we call Maryland, to advance the greater good.
We are asking all our fellow citizens to us join in service that last weekend in September -- and really throughout the month -service to combat hunger, service to protect and restore our environment, service that recognizes the connections between the health of our people, the health of our land, water and air, and the actions we together and as individuals in pursuit of something higher; something bigger than ourselves.
Working in tandem with Maryland's faith community, we will recruit our neighbors to participate in service projects in every county in Maryland.
I encourage all Marylanders to visit the website we're launching today: www.daytoserve.org
Also, for those on twitter, you can encourage your friends to participate by using hashtag #daytoserve
Thanks very much.