Progressive Women create annual Violet Massie-Vereker Award for student activism, present first to PMHS senior Massie-Vereker

From left, Marisa Panzani, Violet Massie-Vereker and Jennie Driesen.

Editor’s note: This press release was provided by the Progressive Women of Pelham.

June 21, 2019 –  Progressive Women of Pelham (PWP), a nonprofit community organization that promotes inclusion and advances progressive policies and candidates, today inaugurated the annual Violet Massie-Vereker Award to honor an outstanding Pelham student who has shown a commitment to creating a more progressive community. The first annual award was presented by PWP co-chair Jennie Driesen to Massie-Vereker, a senior at Pelham Memorial High School (PMHS), for her extraordinary leadership over the past four years.

“Violet’s ideas and organizing acumen have changed her school and our town in fundamental and lasting ways,” Driesen said in her remarks.  “She embodies the very definition of a progressive woman of Pelham.”

Massie-Vereker was the principal organizer and driving force behind the 2017 March for America – the first political march in Pelham history – in support of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, immigrant, LGTBQ, and women’s rights.  She received the New York State Assembly’s Women of Distinction award, granted by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, for her work on the march. Massie-Vereker is the first Pelham teenager to be honored by this award.

In 2018, two days after the Parkland school shooting, Massie-Vereker led one of the first student walkouts in America demanding action on gun control. Her hashtag #menext? went viral, generating over 500k views on Facebook and Instagram. Her activism on gun control caught the attention of national and international press, including Womens eNews, which selected Massie-Vereker for its 21st Century Leader award. She was the only teenager to receive the award. County Executive George Latimer also honored Massie-Vereker for her gun control activism at his first State of the County address in April of 2018.

Massie-Vereker is a founding member of Pelham Eliminates Plastics, which successfully lobbied local grocery market chain, DeCiccos, to eliminate plastic bags. In the spring of 2019, she helped organize a PMHS student walkout to demand action on climate change. She is currently a member of New York City’s Climate Museum Youth Advisory Board. Her Senior “Create” project (a PMHS graduation requirement for seniors focused on issues that impact the wider community) is the founding of a Sustainability Advisory Board at PMHS.

She is the founding opinions & ideas editor of the Pelham Examiner.

“We hope Violet’s legacy is to inspire the next generation of Pelham students to advocate for change that promotes social justice and progressive values,” added PWP co-chair Marisa Panzani. “Progressive Women of Pelham stand with and support student activists in Pelham as they speak up and work towards a more equitable and sustainable world.”