IRONTON — Members from the Meigs County Tea Party will visit Ironton at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Ironton City Center to help organize a Lawrence County group.

Anyone interested in forming and belonging to the Tea Party is invited.

Organizers say the Tea Party is a group of people who come together, just like the original Boston Tea Party, to protest problems in government. There is no central leadership. Ohio has approximately 120 individual and sub-groups that host meetings and have activities.

“The average attendee is a middle-class citizen who thinks both political parties are a mess and is engaging to make a difference,” said local supporter Charlotte Rowley.

“This is a diverse group. We focus on the core values that are necessary to preserving our rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Those values are not possible without limited government, fiscal responsibility and free markets. We see none of these things being preserved by either party.”

Tea Party members are not anarchists or racists, Rowley said.

“We just believe that our government has gotten out of control and we want to make our voices heard,” she said. “We believe preserving personal liberty is the key to a prosperous society and nation.”