The founder and executive director of an Oak Ridge chapter of the national Not In Our Town organization will be the featured speaker at a community forum in September.

The “Not in Our Town” presentation by Valerie Holland Hughes will start at 11 a.m. Monday, September 8, at Grace Covenant Church. It’s sponsored by the Women’s Interfaith Dialogue.

Grace Covenant Church is at 320 Robertsville Road in Oak Ridge.

Hughes began working to establish the Oak Ridge group just over a year ago, a press release said. Her goal has been to ensure that Oak Ridge is a community that models “safety, acceptance, and inclusion as an effective method to address hatred, bullying, and violence.”

The press release said Hughes and NIOT members in Oak Ridge traveled to Billings, Montana, birthplace of the movement 20 years ago, to attend a national gathering of NIOT chapters from June 20-24. [Read more…]