{"id":20243,"date":"2026-07-31T00:22:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=20243"},"modified":"2026-07-31T00:22:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T00:22:29","slug":"the-day-of-the-unleaded-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/31\/the-day-of-the-unleaded-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"The Day of the Unleaded Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Donald Wiggins, Jr, Junction Coalition Environmental Program Specialist<\/em><\/p>\n

Guest Column<\/em><\/p>\n

The author\u2019s remarks at the start of Day Two of the Unleaded Symposium organized by the Junction Coalition on July 23-24.<\/em><\/p>\n

Before there were statutes, there were songs.
\nBefore there were courtrooms, there were circles.
\nBefore there were maps, our ancestors followed rivers, stars with one sacred instruction<\/p>\n

we must not poison the path of the generations coming behind us.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, here in Toledo where the Maumee meets Lake Erie, water has shaped both our landscape and our destiny.<\/p>\n

We gather to renew that ancient covenant.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the\u00a0Day of the Unleaded Symposium<\/em><\/strong> hosted by the Junction Coalition.<\/p>\n

We are not gathered merely to hold another conference. We are gathered for a convening of conscience.<\/p>\n

We are gathered because there are moments when information must become action,<\/p>\n

When concern must become courage, and when a community must rise together and declare that what is preventable is no longer acceptable.<\/p>\n

Lead is a silent thief.<\/p>\n

Lead does not knock before entering a home. It does not announce itself in the dust on a windowsill, the soil beneath a child\u2019s feet, or the water flowing from a familiar faucet.<\/p>\n

Lead steals quietly from growing bodies, developing minds, family peace, household security, and futures that have not yet had the chance to unfold.<\/p>\n

But although lead may be silent,\u00a0we will not be!<\/strong><\/p>\n

We must not accept a world in which a child\u2019s health is determined by the age of their house,<\/p>\n

the condition of their neighborhood,<\/p>\n

or the boundaries of their zip code.<\/p>\n

We will not accept preventable poisoning as the price of poverty.<\/p>\n

We will not accept aging infrastructure,<\/p>\n

deferred maintenance,<\/p>\n

institutional neglect,<\/p>\n

or inadequate investment<\/p>\n

as excuses for diminishing the possibilities of even one child.<\/p>\n

A safe home is not a luxury.
\nClean water is not a privilege.
\nHealthy soil is not an amenity.
\nAnd the opportunity for every child to develop their full mind, body, imagination, and promise is not charity.<\/p>\n

It is a birthright.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is why today matters.<\/p>\n

When we say\u00a0unleaded<\/strong>, we mean more than the absence of a toxic metal.<\/p>\n

We mean children whose futures remain intact.<\/p>\n

We mean parents who no longer have to fear the faucet, the windowsill, the backyard, or the dust carried across the floor.<\/p>\n

We mean residents who are not merely studied by institutions but respected as experts in the conditions of their own lives and empowered as authors of the solutions.<\/p>\n

We mean workers trained, equipped, and paid, yes paid; to restore the communities they call home.<\/p>\n

We mean public officials willing to use public power\u2014public power [emphasis public power]\u2014 for public protection.<\/p>\n

We mean scientists sharing knowledge, advocates demanding accountability, funders moving resources, institutions abandoning excuses, and neighbors standing together across every line that once kept us apart.<\/p>\n

That is the power of a coalition, and it is the power embodied by the Junction Coalition.<\/p>\n

A junction is more than a neighborhood. A junction is a place of meeting. It is where roads converge, where currents join, and where people arriving from different directions decide to move forward together.<\/p>\n

At this junction in our history, the past and the future have come face to face.<\/p>\n

The past has brought us poisoned paint, contaminated soil, aging pipes, disinvestment, and generations of promises too often delayed.<\/p>\n

But the future has brought something stronger into this room:<\/p>\n

Us.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our knowledge.
\nOur memory.
\nOur organizing.
\nOur love for our children.<\/p>\n

Our refusal to surrender another generation to a danger we already know how to prevent.<\/p>\n

The old poets taught that there is a season for everything: a time to mourn and a time to build, a time to speak and a time to act.<\/p>\n

This is our time to act.<\/p>\n

Let us be clear we have not come to admire the problem.<\/p>\n

We have come to end it!<\/p>\n

We have come to join policy with purpose, science with community wisdom, law with justice, investment with accountability, and righteous urgency with the practical work of implementation.<\/p>\n

Because vision without action is only a dream, action without the community is only another program destined to disappear. Life without vision is tyranny!<\/p>\n

But vision joined with organized people, public resources, shared knowledge, and determined leadership\u2014that is how history changes.<\/p>\n

That is how poisoned houses become healthy homes.<\/p>\n

That is how contaminated ground becomes living soil.<\/p>\n

That is how aging infrastructure becomes a foundation for renewed trust.<\/p>\n

That is how a city once burdened by lead can become a city that\u00a0leads<\/strong>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Imagine the Toledo we are preparing to build.<\/p>\n

A Toledo where every child can crawl across the floor,<\/p>\n

A Toledo where every child can drink from the faucet,<\/p>\n

play in the yard,<\/p>\n

and breathe fresh crisp air in their own home without being placed in danger.<\/p>\n

A Toledo where environmental health creates careers as well as protection,<\/p>\n

where public systems respond before families are harmed,<\/p>\n

and where the measure of progress is not how eloquently we describe injustice but how\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 completely we remove it.<\/p>\n

That future is not impossible.<\/p>\n

It is waiting for our courage.
\nIt is waiting for our cooperation.
\nIt is waiting for the decisions we begin making today.<\/p>\n

So let this symposium be more than an event.<\/p>\n

Let it be a declaration.<\/p>\n

Let it be the day we move from awareness to action,<\/p>\n

from programs to power,<\/p>\n

from fragmented efforts to collective purpose,<\/p>\n

and from managing preventable harm to eliminating it.<\/p>\n

When future generations ask what we did when the evidence was before us,<\/p>\n

When the children were depending upon us,<\/p>\n

When the power to change their future was placed within our hands, let the answer echo across Toledo, space, and time<\/p>\n

We gathered.<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>We listened.<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>We organized.<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>We acted.<\/strong>
\n<\/strong>We got the lead out.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Welcome to Day Two of the Unleaded Symposium<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Let us begin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Donald Wiggins, Jr, Junction Coalition Environmental Program Specialist Guest Column The author\u2019s remarks at the start of Day Two of the Unleaded Symposium organized by the Junction Coalition on July 23-24. Before there were statutes, there were songs. Before there were courtrooms, there were circles. Before there were maps, our ancestors followed rivers, stars […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[358],"class_list":["post-20243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20244,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20243\/revisions\/20244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20243"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=20243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}