Persisterhood – St. Joseph will host an “Empty Chair Town Hall Meeting” for 6th District Congressman Sam Graves on Monday, March 24, at Rolling Hills Library’s Upper Story Community Room (1904 N. Belt Highway) in St. Joseph, Missouri, beginning at 6:00 p.m.

The town hall is open to the public and to the media. Doors open at 5:45 p.m. A Zoom option will be available – which will be recorded and made available online. Fourteen speakers will be giving testimonies – written, factual presentations addressed to Graves about the disastrous impact in the 6th District of the DOGE cuts and presidential executive orders.

“Sam Graves has not held an in-person town hall meeting where constituents can meet with him in person since 2012. We’ve opted to proceed without him; he was invited but has declined to attend.  He has ‘stonewalled’ our phone calls, postcards, and online messages to him.  Rather, he sends email replies that simply state ‘thank you’ for contacting him and suggest subscribing to his online newsletter – which we already do! Therefore, we’re holding our Town Hall meeting without him,” said Dr. Jane Frick, St. Joseph Persisterhood Co-facilitator, who will host the Town Hall.

The meeting agenda with Zoom invite is available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L41x-FBI6sA8-9XSQlHYB7FSDbcjMeE9/view. This agenda will be updated on Sunday, March 23, with the complete roster of speakers and links to their written testimonies.

Persisterhood is a local women’s group, mostly women in their 50s/60s/retirement, that performs community service, voter registration drives, educational outreach, and similar community-based projects in and around St. Joseph.