Beck Is a ‘Positive Force’: Check Out What These Tea Party Patriots Are Most Excited About

Glenn Beck’s Restoring Love has gotten off to a rousing start, with people coming from all over the country to advocate for conservative values and put their desire to do good for fellow man into action. From getting to interact with rising conservative political leaders and authors, to taking part in community service projects; from participating in events focused on faith, to listening to musical performances by today’s up-and-coming artists, participants are visibly excited about the days ahead.

TheBlaze caught up with several Tea Party and 9/12 Project patriots to find out why attending Restoring Love is so important to them. Below is the insight they provided:

Ken Emanuelson

Co-founder of the Dallas Tea Party, Emanuelson said he wants to “support the efforts” of people who share a similar mindset and value system and who want to “turn our country and culture around.”

“That is exactly what I see us doing here,” Emanuelson told TheBlaze. “So I try to support that as much and as often as I can.“ He added that he and his fellow Tea Party members are ”working hard” to get Texas Republican Ted Cruz elected to Congress.

Yvonne Donnelly

Chair of the 9/12 Project, Yvonne Donnelly said she is excited about attending Restoring Love, where she can spend time with family and her Constitutional Champions Foundation (CCF) and summer camp for children. ”I founded this a little over a year ago,” Donnelly told TheBlaze. Her foundation teaches the history of the Founding Fathers and is very much in sync with 9/12 but is geared towards children rather than adults.  so champions foundation is all that 9/12 stuff but for kids

Donnelly will be featuring her book and information about CCF at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

“It is also to promote 9/12. Some people are still learning about it and we are trying to get the word out.”

When asked to explain the 9/12 Project in greater detail, Donnelly said that the grassroots organization is dedicated to educating the community “on the principles we were founded on” and is about “connecting people to their communities.”

“I think the problems we have today are because our communities are so fractured.”

Yvonne, who said attending Restoring Love makes her feel feel “energized” and like she is not alone in the pursuit of her goals, said that it “makes my day — it makes my year” to meet new people.

The people attending Restoring Love” are the most amazing people, so more than anything I am looking forward to meeting them all!”

Vicente Bustamante

A Tea Party member of nearly four years and member of “Amigos de Patriots,” a group dedicated to spreading the word of conservatism throughout the Hispanic community, Bustamente told TheBlaze that he was much more motivated to get involved in politics after the election of Barack Obama. He also wants to prove the media is wrong and show that not only “angry, white men” join the Tea Party.

“You have no idea how much I love this country,” Bustamente said. He called the U.S. Constitution is the “greatest document ever created” and that he takes time to truly study the founding document. “I have great respect for the USA and I hate what politicians are doing to the Constitution.”

One of Bustamente’s passions is educating members of the Hispanic community about conservatism. He believes that an aggressive Democrat-led public relations campaign is underway targeting Latinos and blames Republicans for not taking Latino-outreach seriously. “It’s a huge mistake,” he told me.

“I am attending Restoring Love because if we don’t have these kinds of events, the country is going to continue in the wrong direction.”

“I just want to thank Glenn Beck in person, from the bottom of my heart for trying to turn the country around. I try to get people to listen to the message, but the misconceptions are hard to break. But I still try to fight them.”

Nancy Gray

Another representative of Amigos de Patriots, Nancy Gray said that she and her organization is trying hard to “educate people about what is going on around the country” with regard to the government’s penchant for control. She explained that Amigos de Patriots offers educational scholarships, voter outreach, and provides a counterbalance to the overwhelmingly liberal memes perpetuated on Hispanic television and in the community.

“Once I researched [the facts] I realized we were in trouble,” she told me. “My first instinct was to tell people, but it wasn’t easy.”

Gray said that her close relationship with God was what made her unafraid to do the unpopular thing — and that is try to educate a contingent of people averse to her message. Gray, who will be involved in the charitable “day of service,” credits her sister, an avid Beck fan, for having converted her.

In terms of Restoring Love, Gray told me that she is “very excited to meet the variety of people” in attendance and that one of her goals is to show that conservatives are not the “right-wing hate-group” the media portrays them to be.

“The bible says that together we can make things happen and that is the way God works.” — wants to be there for the duration if possible.

Thelma Taormina

Thelma Taormina has been involved with her 9-12 group in Houston since the movement’s inception. since before Glenn;s viewing parties on March 2009. She also held her own “Restoring Courage” event in Texas because she was unable to make it to Israel in 2011.

During this year’s Restoring Love, Taormina said she will be working with her fellow 9-12 member Yvonne Donnelly, at their booth located in Dallas Cowboys stadium.

“This is how I truly think we are going to change this country,” she told TheBlaze during an interview.

“It’s not just attending rallies, it’s educating and informing one individual at a time. Once they know what their rights are, they will return to the moral background we once had [as a nation] and then we can restore the freedom our Founders gave us.”

Taormina believes Restoring Love will be “even more powerful” than all of Beck’s other events combined as it will “encapsulate the entire movement.”

“God is watching us. I believe that.”

Tom Moore

Tom Moore has been listening to Glenn Beck for years and said what he was most struck by, was Beck’s penchant for accuracy in reporting.

“He really check the facts before presenting them,” Moore told TheBlaze. “There is too little of that today, and Beck has credibility with me. I’ll be going to FreedomWorks and to the three days of Restoring Love because I feel like our culture is heading in the wrong direction — there is a coarseness to our society now that concerns me.”

Moore said he is also attending Restoring Love because the societal decline troubles him for his two daughters. He said that raising them in this society today “is a challenge.”

“I feel like I am being sabotaged,” he said. “And I feel like Glenn is trying to change that and bring value to the discussion. For the longest time I felt like a dinosaur with my old fashioned values, but we’re headed in wrong direction. Glenn showed me that there are other people out there like me who’d like to change things.”

Moore was certain to tell me that he is “fired up” about Restoring Love and also thinks the event will be great fun.

John Lawson

Texas State Senate candidate and Tea Party member John Lawson says that the cornerstone of his campaign comprises all of the same values being promoted by Restoring Love. During an interview with TheBlaze, Lawson, who proudly told me that he once worked for renown black entrepreneur Samuel B. Fuller, often invokes the bible when he is out in the community teaching others to “give more love.”

“We need to learn how to give more and then we would get more. Love is giving.“ He said that the country is on the wrong trajectory and that the Obama administration ”has totally the wrong philosophy about the Capitalist system.”

“So they want to break it and replace it with a socialist one. And socialism has never worked for any country in the world.”

“They are trying to get people to receive without sowing and that is an absolutely corrupt idea. I am trying to teach black people and tell them to be careful of those who offer them free stuff. They rob [them] of their initiative, then they lose their ability.”

Bob and Kay Hall

Bob and Kay hall are Tea Party members from East Texas and participated in Glenn Beck’s recent tea party episode of this evening program. During an interview with Bob Hall, who said he and his wife will try to attend all of the events at Restoring Love, believes that it is important to communicate the need to become a “righteous nation” again and tell people in “D.C. and in Austin“ that we have ”drifted away from God’s love.”

“People are too busy wrapped up in themselves to realize that we have a serious problem in our country and that we have to make individual changes in order to fix the mess we’re in.”

He said he hopes to come away with a “new, fresh” perspective and array of ideas on how to better communicate his message of love and liberty to others.

“Otherwise, we’re going to be the first generation to leave a worse legacy than those who came before us.”

Dave Schumacher

David Schumacher has been a Glenn Beck fan for years and is a member of his local 9-12 group in Texas, just North of Austin, an area he dubs, “East Berkeley.”

He said that while people take for granted that Texas is a red state, we “have to be careful because we are turning purple.”

Schumacher, who was present at Beck’s Restoring Honor on the National Mall in 2010, said that he “loves this man [Beck]“ and that Beck ”may single handedly save the country.”

“Socialism doesn’t work — it’s simple — it doesnt work anywhere it’s been tried.”

“That’s why the Tea Party was started. You can’t take money from one group to sustain your economy.”

“This is the most important election we’ve ever had…Our goal is to slow down the growth of government control.”

Diane Benjamin

Diane Benjamin is a Tea Party member who also attended Restoring Honor in Washington, D.C. in 2010 and is “hooked on Glenn Beck.” She is sponsoring a fundraiser for Congresswoman Michele Bachmann

“Glenn appeals to the grassroots,” Benjamin told TheBlaze in an interview. “He brings an awareness to us all and information on how to be strong patrtiots and recognize evil.”

“Love is always a positive force and Glenn to me is a positive force. He promotes understanding and education. “We are thrilled that Glenn is in Texas, in buckle of the Bible Belt. People love him down here!”

As a Republican Jew, Benjamin also noted how Beck is a positive force within the Jewish community and said it is a “joy to see Glenn to support the state of Israel.”

“Israel is a barometer for whatever else happens [in the world]. What happens to them happens to all freeloving people.”

Elizabeth Villegas

Another Amigos de Patriots member, Elizabeth Villegas has been a Glenn Beck fan for at least ten years, but said that Restoring Love is the first “big event” of Beck’s she has ever attended. “I’m really excited to get together with other like-minded people — people who share the same values,” Villegas told TheBlaze. “Beck’s message of serving one another is so true. We haven’t really done that for a long time.”

She said that serving her fellow man is terribly important and that “we have to change the narrative” the media has created about the Tea Party. Villegas is also concerned with reaching out to other Latinos, who she says are “misinformed about the conservative movement.”

“If you watch Spanish TV, it’s all about bashing Republicans,” she added.

Amigos de Patriots was created, according to Villegas, as a counterbalance to the liberal onslaught being waged in the community. “I don’t blame them [Hispanics], they are just misinformed.“ She said that while changing hearts and minds is a ”huge undertaking,” if something isn’t done, “in a few years we will be eclipsed by democrats” in terms of sheer numbers.

“That’s why they push Food Stamps,” Villegas told me during the interview. “It really is outrageous. It’s supposed to be a safety net, not a ‘come and get it.’ Democrats are using that [entitlements] as a form of enticement because they want to control another population with their goodies. It’s crazy.”

Villegas, who will also be volunteering at service projects in the Dallas area, hopes others will open their eyes as well.