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NEW BEDFORD — More than 80 people attended a kickoff event for the newly relaunched Turning Point USA Bristol and Dukes County chapter Wednesday evening, donning star-spangled sweaters and jackets, reciting Bible verses, and lamenting the lack of Christian values in the South Coast’s public schools.

The event, held in a parking lot at 174 Union St. due to an unexpectedly large turnout, marked a new era for both the local chapter and the national conservative youth organization still reeling from the assassination of its founder Charlie Kirk in September. Once reliant on student-led initiatives, Turning Point USA’s new Bristol and Dukes County Activism Hub now aims to reach students and schools from the outside in.

“We, for lack of a better word, try to infiltrate or penetrate these campuses,” chapter chair Gavin Alves said.

South Coast residents of all ages turned out to the conservative youth organization’s kickoff event. Credit: Brooke Kushwaha / The New Bedford Light

Among the mostly older audience, roughly 10 New Bedford-area high school students attended Wednesday’s kickoff. Capturing those students’ names, contact information, and interest is key, Alves said.

“I don’t like fireworks,” Alves said. “I don’t want things to blow up and disappear. I want things to last for a lifetime or over a lifetime, over multiple lifetimes. That’s what Charlie [Kirk] did.”

Unlike a school-sponsored chapter, activism hubs are instead associated with a region or community and designed to inspire students to establish school chapters of their own, Alves said.

According to the TPUSA 2025 Chapter Handbook, activism hubs were once described as a “last resort” for students who cannot get school approval for their TPUSA chapter. The TPUSA web page for activism hubs is currently inactive, but a screen capture from the Internet Archive this past July shows the rules and regulations around activism hubs are the same for school-sponsored chapters.

First founded by New England Conservative Coalition president and anti-offshore-wind activist Christopher Thibeault earlier this year, the Bristol and Dukes County Activism Hub joins similar hubs in Plymouth and Cape Cod. Social media posts made under Thibeault’s leadership show the chapter hosting small get-togethers of mostly young activists.

Galvanized by Kirk’s assassination, Alves said he took over the role of chair from Thibeault on Sept. 17 with the goal of expanding community participation.

“We didn’t know how tonight was going to go, but we got exactly what we asked for,” Alves said, looking out to the crowd.

At that same time, conservative activist and state committeewoman for 1st Bristol/Plymouth Kayla Churchill joined the chapter as secretary. Churchill had previously made headlines for exposing security weaknesses at Freetown Elementary School and four other district schools, using a fake name to enter the buildings. She said she had been challenged by the schools superintendent to test school security after Uvalde. She was charged with disrupting a school assembly, trespassing, and breaking and entering during the day time for each incident. The case was dismissed without prejudice in November 2024.

Churchill now homeschools her three children and mobilizes around conservative causes, most recently hosting memorial vigils for Kirk in Freetown and Fall River last month. Her hope with this chapter, she said, is to better spread the teachings of the Bible in Massachusetts’ public schools and universities.

“Our first schools, they had the Bible,” Churchill said. “They had ‘In God We Trust’ on the walls. They had all that, and it’s been stripped from society. And when it’s a godless society, you see people living like they don’t have God in their lives.”

(“In God We Trust” became the national motto in 1956. Over the past five years, several states, not including Massachusetts, have passed laws requiring or allowing the motto in public school classrooms.)

Wentworth Institute of Technology sophomore Sarah Howard, 33, traveled from Fall River to attend Wednesday’s kickoff at Churchill’s suggestion. The daughter of pro-life activists, Howard had been following Kirk’s activism since they were both teenagers.

“Listening to Charlie speak, it was like, ‘Wow, I have someone else that kind of has the same views as me,’” Howard said. “When you live in Massachusetts, you don’t really find that.” 

Howard helped start the TPUSA chapter at Wentworth after taking a break from school to start a family. With just 10 members now, she hopes the organization will grow.

Alves and Churchill hope the same for their chapter. Addressing the crowd gathered in the parking lot, Alves said he hoped to see attendance double at the next community meeting, which has yet to be announced. 

No counter-protesters picketed outside the event, but one passerby yelled “[Expletive] Nazis!” at the crowd. Kirk had been accused of antisemitism even by fellow conservatives for some of his political beliefs.

Both Alves and Churchill referred to Kirk’s death as all the more reason to take action and further Kirk’s legacy, which they described as one steeped in Christian teachings and values. 

“When Charlie died, he left many seeds,” Churchill told attendees. “We are the seeds.”

Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that the assembly took place in a parking lot at 174 Union St. but it was not affiliated with Boulder Union Climbing & Fitness located there. The story also includes more details about the charges and dismissal of those charges against Kayla Churchill as well as her updated title.

45 replies on “Turning Point USA kicks off new chapter in New Bedford”

  1. Your god is not my God. Keep your “religion” and twisting reading of the Bible that allows for hatred, discrimination, and elitism out of our school. Lord have mercy on you.

        1. So it’s okay for BLM protesters to riot in the streets, burn down buildings and kill police officers, but not okay for a group of God-loving people to gather publicly? How far we’ve fallen as a Nation…

  3. BOULDER UNION WAS IN NO WAY ASSOCIATED NOR SUPPORTIVE OF THIS EVENT OR THIS ORGANIZATION.

    Inaccurate and shoddy reporting like this may not affect YOUR livelihood, but it can be DETRIMENTAL to the livelihood of the local business you drag into your lack of fact-checking, the same fact-checking your organization claims to be so “dedicated” to.

    I expect this to be rectified hastily with the removal of Boulder Union’s mention from this article as well as a PUBLIC acknowledgement and apology for your inaccurate reporting.

  4. The event location is incorrectly identified. The parking lot is not owned by Boulder Union Climbing and Fitness. The parking lot is properly identified by its street address. There is no affiliation between the event and Boulder Union Climbing and Fitness.

  5. To uphold the principle of separation between church and state, religious activities should remain outside of public schools, government institutions, and public property. Individuals are free to practice and teach religion in private settings. It’s important to consider how we would respond if a lesser-known or minority religion—such as Islam or Buddhism—were actively engaging youth in public spaces. Would the reaction be the same? Ensuring equal treatment for all faiths means maintaining neutrality in public institutions.

    2. Agree, the others are the ones this group looks down on if they follow who they say they are. They can’t have it both ways!

  6. The separation of Church and State is one of the founding principles of this nation. Seems like these “Christians” need to better learn basic history.

    2. Loosely christians, christians don’t preech hate such as they do. They like to dish it out, well they have to be able to take it too!

  7. Well said. I wonder if this group ever learned basic US History or civics. To mention the phrase adopted in the mid 1950s, In God We Trust, ignores the very foundation we operated under for over 175 years prior, and the Constitution guaranteeing the non interference or preference of any religious group in our nation.
    And to be quite clear, I am a practicing Christian. Just a Christianity without the insanity.

    1. In God we trust us imprinted on our currency. Don’t like it, don’t use it. IN GOD WE TRUST, YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW. Your God, is not mine!

      1. Your Allah is not my God.
        Should Bibles be in all schools, which testament?
        The Quran?
        Any other holy books.

    2. In God We Trust is not a motto, it’s the name of a Trust.
      The word God, on the name of that Trust – is not the name of our father Yahweh as known in the Bible – God stands for Good Owed Dollar… all dollars in circulation and borrowed are owed/debt.
      BTW There in no separation of Church and State in the CONstitution or in the Bible. The 1st article of the Bill of Rights protects religion/s and and man-kin from gov’t and not vice versa.
      Remember as churches get smaller, court houses and jails/prison get larger.
      Kind regards
      Vital Rights

      2. it prevents the government from establishing an official religion and from flavoring one over another.

        therefore, by definition, government cannot have religion in it, or it would be breaking that.

      3. also, the only people making jails and prisons larger… are religious conservatives… maybe look at who builds jails and who tries to keep people out of them…

      4. You are really confused! FACT! ” In GOD we trust”, on currency is keeping spirituality in mind. You really need to explore the information before you spew something crazy, stating it’s an actual trust.

  8. I AM GLAD TO SEE, MR. KIRKS WORD TO CONTINUE TO SPREAD ESPECIALLY IN THE SCHOOLS WERE WE NEED IT “MOST!” STRONG BIBLE PRACTICES, ARE THE WAY TO GO!

    1. If you want your kid to read the Bible in school, that’s fine with me – enroll them in a catholic school. Don’t force my kid into your version of Christianity in a public school with my tax dollars.

  10. Mind blowing! Imagine if Hasan Piker or Mehdi Hasan were given the same opportunity (same taxpayer-funded platform, same endorsements, same administrative tolerance for disruption) that Charlie Kirk and TPUSA enjoy. Imagine if progressive speakers, Muslim journalists, or socialist commentators were invited into classrooms to challenge govt policies, corporate greed, and Christian nationalism with the same institutional backing.

    There would be nonstop phone calls and hearings, petitions, emergency board meetings about “ indoctrination”, “bias and wokeness in the schools.”, etc…But when a group like TPUSA enters a school — armed with billionaire funding, “free speech,” rhetoric and a breathtaking record of harassment and disinformation — we’re supposed to interpret this as civic engagement??

    Hot take: The far right is welcomed into classrooms not because their ideas are so persuasive but because they protect the “order of things”. The right defends old hierarchies, teaches deference where there should clearly be dissent, and trains students to stay polite in the face of injustice. That’s the kind of citizenship power rewards…obedient, orderly, and quiet.

    1. Jeff the problem with TPUSA is that their platform is built on the (false and glad you agree) idea that there ISN’T enough room for everybody. They explicitly want to put their version of God and Christianity before all other denominations and religions and transform our great pluralism into a homogenous, evangelical theocracy. Once THEY make room for everyone and stop trying push their twisted version of the Bible into our schools and public places, we’ll make room for them.

      1. Hank I enjoy reading everyone’s posts. Anyone can look all over the web and get several different opinions on this. I think everyone interprets and sees things differently and has the right to form their own opinion, but I stand by what I said in my original comment (Wishing the new Turning Point USA Chapter the best of luck). I tend to think today there are a lot worse things going on in our city, state, and country. Have a great day.

    2. From today’s headlines, here’s why
      TPUSA is a dangerous organization that believes there is not room for everyone.

      “ An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at Rutgers University says he is fleeing with his family to Spain after getting death threats amid a campaign by the campus chapter of Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired.”
      https://apnews.com/article/antifa-rutgers-professor-conservatives-threats-6cfb50f3b7baf3d5e881971b283ed47e

  12. The populations of Bristol and Dukes Counties are just over 600,000. Eighty people attended this activist event, so that’s .00013%! Of course, this is Massachusetts the highest in educational ranking of our 50 States. Next time they should meet in Mississippi or Louisianna for better numbers.

  14. The populations of Bristol and Dukes Counties are just over 600,000. Eighty people attended this activist event, so that’s .00013%! Of course, this is Massachusetts, with the highest educational ranking of 50 States. Next time they should meet in Mississippi or Louisianna for better numbers.

  16. I didn’t even know this event took place. I’m sure many more would attend. I hope you all are prepared to debate as Charlie was. The knowledge and stamina you need to carry on Charlie’s mission is special. I pray God bless your mission. But the Bible says in the last days hearts will grow cold and more people will fall away from truth so be strong and have courage even in the midst of opposition and the ways of this world. Everything you all do will be under a microscope and even twisted. I pray God be with you in spirit and in truth.

  18. The idea that this is either Christianity or politics is wrong on both counts. It’s a grift, as are most leader centered cults. I doubt they could withstand a deep discussion of the Gospels or basic government. But they have the tee shorts, podcasts, and clicks.

  19. I am very pleased to see that the majority of comments are well thought out, and in favor of the separation of church and public school.

Comments are closed.