Everyone has heard the saying, “Give peace a chance.” The newly formed Living Peace group is paving the way for encouragement of peace here on campus.

Members of the group describe it as being a mixture of Progressive Action Coalition and Religious Life Council. Currently overseeing the group is sophomore Eliot Garfield, senior Joe Roth and junior Katie Ziskovsky.

Ziskovsky said she wanted to start this group to give people like herself the power to channel their energies.

“I would sit around and feel very frustrated about things in the world, and I wanted to do something instead of sit around,” Ziskovsky said. Garfield and Roth both agreed that a group like Living Peace was needed for this reason.

Living Peace will be a total collaborative effort on the part of its members.

“Ultimately, we don’t want this group to have any specific leaders. We want the whole group to be leaders,” Roth said.

The group is an outlet for the members of campus that care about the world around them and want to do something about it. Living Peace hopes to become more and more humanity based and also have a diverse group working together towards a common goal.

A variety of representation within its membership is what Garfield says sets this group apart.

“It would be great if we could bring diversity to the groups involved, but really the goal is to bring the peace movement to campus. In the heated days we live in, not knowing when what country is going to bomb what other country, its important to give the Simpson community a chance to react in a nonviolent way.,” Garfield said.

Already the group hosted a peace vigil on Sept. 12. At the vigil, there were supplies to write letters to various government officials so that students could express their feelings for peace. The supplies are still available in the PAC house and in the chapel.

Though Garfield, Roth and Ziskovsky liked the idea of holding vigils, in the future they plan to do more.

The group hopes to accomplish that people realize that they can do something, and that people can make their voice heard. The group wants the campus to know that everyone can make a difference.

The group is currently trying to attract more members. If more people are interested in being involved, they can contact Roth, Ziskovsky or Garfield.