OUR STORY

SAGE formed when a group of Hartland parents and school staff organized to resist Moms For Liberty’s campaign to flip their school board during the 2022 midterms. In May 2023 the same anti-DOE activists worked with the local GOP pushing culture wars politics to try and defund the school district of 25 million dollars. SAGE organized and pushed back hard, successfully securing the badly needed funding for our children. 

The group began to grow later in 2023 when the Fowlerville school community joined forces as they experienced similar attacks targeting LGBTQ+ students. The rural areas of Livingston County (LivCo) have been hit hardest in the extremist’s mission to overthrow all local government boards. In 2024, with help from the same anti-DOE activists and the local GOP, Hartland’s public library was flipped by MAGA pastor Bill Bolin’s slate and has been facing an attempt of having hundreds of books purged. SAGE continues to expose this ongoing situation- see September’s Community Forum event. 

From July 2024 to February 2025 there were 6 documented hate incidents in LivCo. White supremacists demonstrated and marched in downtown Howell, Brighton and Fowlerville. They protested an Anne Frank play at Howell’s American Legion, making international news, and protested at the Howell Theater during a documentary about a recent LivCo KKK leader reforming. SAGE countered every single eruption of hate with actions of love, holding Community & Unity rallies which attracted lots of new members to our group.

City leaders, local officials and law enforcement continuously deny any white supremacy issues despite the fact that LivCo currently has two out of five school districts in lawsuits for severe and unchecked racism. SAGE’s work has organically evolved over the years to encompass fighting back on all of the systems of oppression that we continue to experience in our community. In facing such deep issues it was clear that becoming a more formal entity would be of benefit which is why SAGE is incorporating as a 501(c)3 non profit organization in 2025.

OUR MISSION

SAGE is run by Livingston community members invested in collective change. We seek transformation through advocacy, community building, education, and mutual aid to ensure a safe and inclusive space to authentically express ourselves and create equity for all. We recognize the strength of unity and welcome partnerships and collaborations with individuals and groups authentically advocating the same goals and values.

OUR VISION

We envision a Livingston County without white supremacy, racism, transphobia, and other systems of oppression.

OUR VALUES

  • We believe positive community change requires individual lifelong commitments to addressing personal biases through understanding prejudice, power dynamics, privilege, and intersectionality.

  • We seek greater individual and community education, humility, accountability, agency, and autonomy through personal reflection and local engagement. We recognize constant disruption of the status quo as a positive and necessary act for our collective liberation.

  • We reject tolerance of racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ableism, ageism, and other systems of oppression, which automatically creates environments that facilitate our inherent capacity to develop biases. When unexamined biases are supported by power dynamics, they lead to oppression, which we understand through a United States context.

  • We attend to power dynamics by recognizing members’ unique knowledge, capacity, identities, experiences, and trauma while moving between and combining needs-based, shared, and leader decision-making structures.

  • We work outside traditional structures by focusing on community needs, organizing, and mutual aid.

  • We acknowledge the critical impact of intersectionality and seek to address the needs of those individuals most at risk of experiencing oppression by centering the most vulnerable members of our community.

  • We recognize and seek to overcome and address the power dynamics which limit children’s ability to advocate and build power on their own.

  • We believe conflict is inevitable in any community, and moving through an accessible and sustainable conflict resolution cycle is essential to building a community of liberation.

  • We reject capitalist notions of scarcity and disposability, addressing the needs of all members of the SAGE community is necessary. There is no limit to our ability to hold space for each other's needs.

Why is SAGE’s mascot the hummingbird?

The hummingbird story is an inspiring tale, told in this short clip by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Professor Wangari Maathai Wangari. It is about doing the best you can under seemingly impossible odds. You may only be one hummingbird carrying one tiny droplet of water to the fire, but if we get hundreds and then thousands of us, those drops of water will extinguish the fire of hate! When each one of us does our small part it makes all the difference; many drops create a tsunami of change. 

This is why our goal is to create a #HummingbirdArmy as it’s crucial that every single one of us do what we can. EveryDropCounts in the fight against fascism. It starts by emotionally connecting with people in a way that inspires them to help stand against extremism with us which is why we recognize the importance of connecting with each other in person regularly.  Check out our events calendar for weekly get togethers!

Contact us

Interested in working together? Fill out some info, and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!