A Year in Review and Some Final Thoughts

GU RTL at the 2020 March for Life

When we began the academic year at Georgetown this past August, we announced that our theme was “Pro-life Throughout Life,” a phrase that would encourage us to see beyond the typical pro-life areas of advocacy and explore avenues we had not in the past. In a special way, we sought to bear witness to a consistent ethic of life by expanding our service opportunities, increasing our guest speaker variety, and building a community that would continue to give voice to a culture of life. While the coronavirus pandemic has undoubtedly cut our year short, serving as President of Georgetown Right to Life has awarded me the privilege of working with individuals dedicated to upholding the life and dignity of the human person. Since the last day of classes at Georgetown University was yesterday, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all of the work and efforts put forth by the members of the board.

This year, RTL held five different Diaper Drives, collecting baby supplies for local pregnancy resource centers to later distribute to mothers and children in need. For the first time, we had planned to volunteer as part of Georgetown University’s Prison Justice Initiative, created a team for HoyaTHON, and wrote postcards for Jesuit Refugee Services, to name a few initiatives. Further, we made the transition to Squarespace as we revamped our website to make it more user friendly and visually appealing. To our service chair, Kerry: none of this would have happened without your vision and support. My sincerest congratulations as you assume the role of President of RTL for the 2020-2021 academic year -- I cannot wait to see all you will accomplish. 

Another new Georgetown RTL tradition, under the leadership of Mary Kate Etscorn, our Vice President, we partnered with INOVA Blood Services to host two separate blood drives, one per semester. We were genuinely impressed with the kindness and selflessness of the Georgetown community as we often had too few time slots for interested donors. Mary Kate, thank you for tirelessly working to promote the Blood Drives and for all your help running our other events.

The Pregnancy Resource Forum and Lives Worthy of Respect Panels are two of our most renowned events occurring once annually. This year, we celebrated our 24th Pregnancy Resource Forum and 3rd Lives Worthy of Respect event, both spearheaded by our events chair, Christof. Christof, thank you for your diligence in reserving rooms, contacting speakers, and helping coordinate events (even over summer and winter break).

In recent years, the pro-life community’s numbers have dwindled and we have struggled with member retention. Reggie, Paulina, Ana, Taryn, and Mary, you all made valuable contributions in this. Reggie, you spiced up every one of our events with a contagious positive attitude and a willingness to go the extra mile to make new members feel included and comfortable. Paulina, thank you for helping plan the first-ever general body and board bonding activities that brought our members closer together. As our social media chair, Ana, you have increased our presence on different platforms, helped us promote our events and keep those interested updated, and managed our blog posts and general body group chat. Taryn thank you for helping coordinate our events and stay on top of our weekly outreach. One of the ways we increase our visibility on campus is by tabling. Getting people to sign up to table is not easy, so thank you so much Mary for organizing the tabling schedule, bringing back the customized GU RTL stickers, and most recently designing our board sweaters. 

Jennie, thank you for managing our budget as well as being ahead of any purchases we might need for general body meetings, speaker/service events, etc. Your willingness to step up and work hard truly made a difference and our club is better for having you.

Last, but certainly not least, thank you Sarah. You put hours of effort into creating flyers for our most important events and were super patient and understanding when we had to go through multiple revisions for different reasons.

Thank you, again, to all our board members, and of course, also to those in our general body. Please know that you made my senior year memorable and are part of my most treasured memories at Georgetown. You have each challenged me to step out of my comfort zone in different ways, and I could not have asked for a better community or group of friends. 

One last time.

Vita Saxa,

Flo

GU RTL President 2019 - 2020