This past weekend, our founder & executive director Maria Bruno was chosen as Columbus Community Festival’s 2025 Honored Community Activist.
This award is given to an individual that embodies the Festival’s principles by working towards “collective action in common purpose to improve our community and change our country in ways that make it more closely resemble the ideals it professes to the rest of the world… kindness, cooperation, and a commitment to fairness and justice.”
Not too shabby for our first year as an organization, huh?
We couldn’t be prouder of Maria and of the impact that Ohioans Against Extremism has already had on Ohio politics within its first year as an organization.
Listen to Maria’s brief remarks (and introduction by friend and colleague Bethany Sanders), and read her Comfest profile below.
In case the image is too hard to read, we’ve reprinted the text* below.
*While correcting a couple minor editing mistakes.
Community Festival 2025
Honored Community Activist
Maria Bruno
Maria Bruno describes herself as shy by nature. But when she experiences injustice, she gets angry and is compelled to act. Maria’s deep sense of justice and feisty outspoken style led her into community activism and law before finally founding her own advocacy organization, Ohioans Against Extremism, in 2024.
Ohioans Against Extremism emerged in direct response to the rise of hate groups, particularly ones targeting the LGBTQ+ community, that were becoming a vocal presence around the state. It’s grown into a network of more than 40 organizations to build advocacy and involvement and to educate people about what's happening at the Statehouse.
Maria grew up in a big family in Medina’s small, conservative community, so she learned to use her voice and hone her arguments if she was going to get taken seriously. She enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh just in time for the upheavals of the Great Recession.
There she became immersed in student organizing, “learning from Teamster union organizers.” She became the President of STAND, which organized students against genocide and mass atrocity, and began thinking about cross-issue collaboration. She started a group called Open Books to promote socially responsible investment of university endowments.
Maria began working for State Representative Dan Frankel. She found his perspective refreshing and asked him for a job. He said yes. This positive experience exposed her more directly to law and government and inspired her to attend the Ohio State Moritz College of Law on a full scholarship.
In her second year at OSU, only hours after turning in her last final, Maria suffered a stroke that left her partially blind and subject to perpetual severe headaches. She had to adjust and focus on soft skills like public speaking and auditory learning to make up for her inability to spend long periods of time reading or using computers. She learned about resilience and her ability to adapt as she encountered two more serious health events in the next 10 years.
“I'm probably much more in touch with my mortality than most people,” she says. A life-threatening health event offers another chance to live, making it “pretty easy for me to keep my priorities straight.”
After law school, Maria worked at ACLU Ohio and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio. While working as public policy director at Equality Ohio, she had the idea to start Ohioans Against Extremism.
In 2023, the apparent normalization of attacks and intimidation in public forums shook her. “One of the first events Nazis showed up to was just down the road from where I'm from,” she recalls. “I knew... this kind of hate wasn't going away unless it was beaten back through strong, unified organizing and advocacy.”
Bethany Sanders, a former board member for Equality Ohio, says, “Be it for civil liberties, housing, voting, LGBTQ+ equality, or extremism, [Maria] is always thinking of and working for those most often left behind. She wants to build a community where everyone can thrive and in doing so lives ComFest every day.”
Maria hopes Ohioans Against Extremism will galvanize Ohioans across the political spectrum to focus on shared values and goals while connecting voters with tangible anti-extremism actions they can take to make a difference in their communities.
Some efforts, "in real time, felt completely useless," she says, "only to watch a seedling of what I did allow someone else to plant a whole garden full of progress. So even if what you are doing isn't immediately rewarding, it doesn't mean it isn't making a difference. Don't let other people disagreeing with your ideas stop you.”
Ainslee Johnson-Brown met Maria during Maria’s time with Equality Ohio and later became board president of Ohioans Against Extremism.
“Maria is a dragon slayer,” Johnson-Brown says. “The energy and audacity she brings to the advocacy work here have played an integral part in motivating average Ohioans like me to take action, using whatever talents and resources we already have."
Maria’s bravery in the face of adversity and ability to inspire others, particularly those on the sidelines, explain her selection as this year’s ComFest Community Activist.
— Graham Bowman
Read the full program here to read about the other honorees, or visit Comfest.com.
We do it all for you, Ohio.
We do it all for the people of Ohio, and the people of Ohio are noticing. We’ve gotten feedback from across the state, including and especially from Ohioans in rural and small town Ohio, telling us how Ohioans Against Extremism helps them hold their own lawmakers accountable. That’s been our goal from the start. And it’s working. This is just the beginning.
(obligatory plug that even $5 a month makes a huge difference to us!)
Get involved with Ohioans Against Extremism
Become a “How Things Work at The Statehouse” Presenter
Attend our 2-part workshop and present about the Statehouse in your own community. Happening NEXT WEEK! (Registration Required)
Join our Community Partner Network
We convene a network of 40+ community organizations around the shared goal of stopping extremism in Ohio
Track Extremist Ohio Bills
The legislature just recessed for Summer break, making it a perfect time to get caught up on extremist statehouse legislation
Check out our podcast
We explore a wide variety of political topics, diving into the real life causes and consequences of extreme legislation and rhetoric.
We need your support to keep us going. Yes, really!
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