FCCPR art auction raising money for billboards in an effort to combat Project 2025
Published: 09-20-2024 3:21 PM |
GREENFIELD — A multi-issue grassroots organization that champions progressive causes is holding an online art auction to raise money to combat Project 2025, a transitional blueprint crafted by a conservative think tank in the event Donald Trump is reelected to the presidency in November.
Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution (FCCPR) received 43 pieces of art donated by professional crafters and artists from Franklin and Hampshire counties for the auction that began on Sept. 15 and concludes at 8 p.m. on Sept. 29. Proceeds will support the installation of one or two billboards aimed at calling attention to the perceived dangers of Project 2025 and to support the Movement Voter Project, which directs money to small-scale political groups mostly in key battleground states.
“It seemed like a really nice and gentle way to do fundraising,” said Ferd Wulkan, a member of FCCPR’s coordinating committee, which decided where the proceeds would go. One billboard has already been installed at the corner of Bank Row, Deerfield Street and Mill Street in Greenfield, and Wulkan said his organization would like to have one in New Hampshire, which is more of a swing state than Massachusetts, as well.
The online auction can be found at tinyurl.com/FCCPRart. The artwork up for auction ranges from paintings to jewelry to posters.
FCCPR member Pixie Holbrook, who dabbles in dollhouse-scale miniatures, belongs to the Shelburne Arts Cooperative and recruited some of her colleagues to contribute items to the cause.
“And I’m lucky enough to have a lot of friends who are really creative and artistic,” Holbrook said.
Project 2025, the brainchild of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation in 2022, is roughly 900 pages and has been described as a far-right political playbook. If its outline becomes a reality, it would make abortion access much more difficult, criminalize pornography, dismantle the Department of Education, privatize student loans and bar transgender Americans from military service, among other things. It would also bolster the power of the government’s executive branch, which is the president, the vice president and the Cabinet.
“It’s chilling,” Holbrook said of Project 2025.
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She mentioned this is the second online art auction held by FCCPR. The first one about four years ago, she said, raised $4,000 or $5,000 for Grannies Respond, a grassroots movement formed in response to the separation of families seeking asylum at the southern border of the U.S.
Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.