I’m just back from a great trip to Italy. Two weeks of amazing sights, great accommodations, lots of good wine, pretty perfect weather, and delightful companions. I think the best part, however, was being away from Maine and national news. I’m pretty sure that’s why my blood pressure was low when I came back. It’s been on the rise ever since.

There were three events this week, though, that have given me hope that we still can become a kinder, more gentle country that values women, children and old people, regardless of their religion, country of origin, or sexual orientation.

The first event was a gathering of women with whom I became friends in the 1980s, when we were young and passionate about making sure women’s interests were represented at the State House in the wee hours of the night when deals were made over what was going to be funded and what wasn’t. The Maine Women’s Lobby was founded when a domestic violence bill, which all sides agreed deserved funding, was cut after midnight when no one was there to fight for it.

For the last 38 years, the Maine Women’s Lobby has had a lobbyist each legislative session working to assure a voice for women’s economic security, safety, and civil and reproductive rights.

At this week’s gathering, we committed to making sure the Maine Women’s Lobby and its sister organization, the Maine Women’s Policy Center, will have the resources necessary far into the future to keep to the needs of women and children in front of legislators’ eyes. None of us imagined we would still be fighting the same battles 40 years later but we are determined that our granddaughters, if need be, will have someone to fight for them.

The second event was a gathering to celebrate the work of Maine Equal Justice Partners and to honor two of my personal heroes, Sen. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston and Mark Swann, executive director of Preble Street in Portland, for the work they do each day to make sure people with low incomes have access to supports they need to leave poverty behind. For the past 20 years, Maine Equal Justice Partners has been dedicated to finding solutions to poverty and improving the lives of people living on the edge. By bringing the people whose lives are affected by policy to the tables where those policies are being made, MEJP has been providing creative and successful solutions that have made Maine known nationally for moving people off welfare and into jobs that pay well.

Parents as Scholars is just such a program. A successful Parents as Scholars Amendment to the 2002 welfare reform bill, providing child care and transportation supports to mothers getting college degrees, was introduced in the Senate by Olympia Snowe.

And despite the past six years of the mean-spirited LePage administration, they never give up hope that our better angels will, once again, prevail. The event was filled with people from all walks of life who share that hope.

The third event, the Natural Resources Council of Maine press conference, wasn’t one I attended but one that I read about. If there is one thing almost every Mainer can agree on, it’s that we are proud to live in a state that has an abundance of clean water, healthy forests and undeniable beauty. Those natural resources have strengthened our economy and brought millions of people to our state. We should be supporting the organization’s work more, and the governor’s letter inadvertently may have helped. For those of us who were too young to have been on Nixon’s enemies list, support for these and other organizations on the governor’s hit list is a second chance.

If you, too, are hopeful that the days when we acknowledged that government has a role to play in our well-being — not just to corporations facing tough times, but to actual people — your donations to organizations like these are critical to making that happen.

If you, too, believe for the sake of our future economic prosperity, we need to make sure that our youngest children are healthy, warm, free from hunger, and ready to succeed when they start school, your support for candidates who share those beliefs can help to make sure that there is a veto-proof Legislature in place for the next two years.

The election in November is going to provide a clear choice for what kind of state and what kind of nation we are. I’m hopeful that the results will have a positive effect on my blood pressure.

Karen Heck is a longtime resident and former mayor of Waterville.