Providing for the Common Defense

The Kairos Center Presents:
Moral Policy in a Time of Crisis

DAY 2: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24
Providing for the Common Defense

Redefining the ideas of national security and common defense, with:

Charon Hribar is the Director of Cultural Strategies at the Kairos Center. She also serves as the co-coordinator of Theomusicology and Movement Arts for the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Over the past 15 years, Charon has been dedicated to the work of political education, leadership development, and integrating the use of arts and culture for movement building with community and religious leaders across the country.

Lindsay Koshgarian is the director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies. At NPP, her work is at the intersection of military and domestic federal spending and she co-edited the Poor People’s Moral Budget: Everybody Has the Right to Live. She got her start as a clinic worker and organizer at Planned Parenthood in central and suburban Philadelphia, and led economic development and affordable housing studies at the University of Massachusetts Donahue Institute prior to joining NPP in 2014.

Erica Williams is Vice President for State Fiscal Policy at CBPP. In this role, she takes part in leading the organization and its 40-person State Fiscal Policy division and supports the development and progress of the State Priorities Partnership, a network of over 40 state-level fiscal and economic policy shops working to advance racial, gender, and economic justice.

Kyle Bibby is a former Marine Corps Infantry Captain and Afghanistan War veteran. He is currently the National Campaign Manager at Common Defense. Prior to Common Defense, Kyle served as a Director at the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, a nonprofit that aids citizens returning from incarceration. He has previously served as a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) assigned to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President during the Obama Administration and with the Office of Congressional Affairs for the US Agency for Global Media. Kyle holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the US Naval Academy and a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs.

Savina Martin is a lifelong activist and organizer from Massachusetts. She is an Army Veteran, and over the past few decades has mobilized and organized with homeless men, women and veterans throughout Boston and San Diego, CA. She has played a leadership role in the National Union of the Homeless and is an active member on the National Advisory Council of the Homeless Union today. She is currently a member of the University of the Poor’s Homeless Union History Project and a Tri-Chair of the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

Rev. Emily McNeill is executive director of the Labor-Religion Coalition of NYS and co-chair of the NYS Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Emily is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and holds an M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where they were a Fellow with the Poverty Initiative (now Kairos Center). Prior to joining Labor-Religion Coalition in 2014, Emily was pastor of Parkland United Methodist Church in Tacoma, WA.

Michael Gramling is a former member of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee. He is a founding member of the Flying Frog Farm, a commune located in rural Allen County, KY. He started his career 35 years ago teaching in a Head Start classroom where he met and married artist and community organizer Teresa Christmas. He wrote a book about it, Head Start. He has five amazing kids. He joined the Poor People’s Campaign in 2018.