The “Not Book Club”—a group of four women from Cheltenham Township—is hosting a protest event titled “Say No to DOGE” at 6:00pm on Tuesday, March 4 at the intersection of Keswick Avenue and Waverly Road in Glenside.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was established by the Trump administration in January. The protest, as well as the club, are a response to that Executive Order.
Organizer Jessica Tkacs told Glenside Local that the group the group is “very concerned about what is happening with this administration” and will be joined by environmental nonprofits Clean Air Council, Power Interfaith, Indivisible and others. Cheltenham graduate Alex Bomstein, Clean Air Council’s executive director, will be present.
“I’m one of the people who lives in the one-mile radius. There was so much assist from the EPA and there’ve been all kinds of discussions about what to do with that site going forward,” Tkacs said. “We heard that Trump called for a 65% reduction from the EPA. How could that not impact our ability to come back from this? We just saw how instrumental governmental workers are during that incident.”
The name of the club is a running joke between the four founders, three of whom have been involved in activism previously.
“The club came about in part because we wanted to do more than talk about it. We wanted to do something very active in Cheltenham,” she said. “We could keep going to rallies in Harrisburg and elsewhere, but we wanted to help Cheltenham become a more active place where people feel they can do more than just talk about the programs.”
“Our title may change as time goes in, but for now it’s been sort of our running joke,” Tkacs said.
From her Facebook post:
There are a million good reasons to take on the Trump agenda both personally and communally, and we are happy to address all of them. But we are united on Tuesday by the horrible toxic fire that erupted in our neighborhood last week and our opposition to Trump’s pledge to reduce the EPA by 65%. That will cripple our efforts to monitor air and water quality as we determine the future of the SPS site, and will undermine efforts to protect our air and water nationally. If you care to join us in Glenside next Tuesday, we would love to see you!
The event’s flyer is below:
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