By Eric Cravey
For Times West Virginian
Fairmont — Two organizations will join forces downtown on Sunday to sing for peace.
Friendly City Indivisible and the Bridgeport-based organization Elijah’s Covenant will host “Sing Out for Peace” June 14 at 2 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 301 Jackson St. in Fairmont.
“It is about people coming together to sing, hopefully to help them gain some personal peace, because we will never have peace in the world until we have a world of peaceable people,” said Rev. Margot L. Willis, founder of Elijah’s Covenant and facilitator of the event.
While Friendly City Indivisible may be best known for hosting “No Kings” rallies to voice public opposition to the Trump Administration’s policies, Willis said the event is neither religious nor political. She stressed that the sing along is meant to be a safe place where people can connect through music.
“If we can do that and begin to create community again, instead of all the division, fear, and hate that has come from the Trump forces and from COVID isolation, then we can do something,” she continued.
Willis said the Fairmont event is one of many Sing Out for Peace events planned around the U.S. this summer. Renowned Fairmont pianist John Morrison will play the songs as those in the pews sing along Sunday.
“We’re going to start with songs for peace again — not protests — songs for peace that go back to 1940 and then we’re just going to come forward in increments of time,” she said.
Songs on the program include “This Land is Your Land,” “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” “We are the World,” and songs from the 1960s folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
In between each song, Willis, who is an advanced biofield medicine practitioner as well as a retired pastor, will lead guests through exercises that will teach them how to acknowledge their energy, or emotions.
“Einstein taught us 80-plus years ago that everything is energy and energy can neither be created nor destroyed,” Willis continued.
Warren Hilbos, a Fairmont community activist with Friendly City Indivisible, said “Sing Out for Peace” is the result of months of conversations that began with the simple request to have music at some of the group’s events.
“Music just has a way of bringing people together, lifting spirits, but also calming nerves, and that sort of thing, but you know, real life being what it is, we ran into some challenges, getting it all to come together while doing all the other things that it takes to put on a positive, safe protest in here in Fairmont,” Hilsbos said.
Hilsbos and other organizers kept thinking of the best date, time and place to host the event and then, it dawned on him that June 14, 2026 was the one-year anniversary of the first national “No Kings” protest. So, that’s when he reconnected with Willis who began contacting various ministers and others in the community to pull the event together.
“[The event] does align very closely with a lot of our sort of values and philosophies about why we’re doing what we’re doing, and what matters most, which first and foremost is strong communities, and peace, freedom, justice, that sort of thing,” he said.
He said that people remain frustrated over what is happening politically in Washington while the cost of living continues to hit families who are struggling to earn a living wage. His hope is that “Sing Out for Peace” will unify those who share opposing beliefs.
“Well, first, [I believe] that peace is possible, No. 2, that piece is worth the effort, and three, that even their own little voice can be powerful, both for their own personal life experience, but also to others that they count, that they matter,” Hilsbos said. “You know, you don’t have to be Mariah Carey for your voice to matter and be worth raising, particularly for something like peace.
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