Tales From The Frontline Category
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Friday, July 23rd, 2010
Jim Caldwell, Head Coach of the Indianapolis Colts, at the "Hang the Net" event with Ray Robinson (at left) and Sean Maxwell.
This week was all about some Youth Voter Pledge cards. We hit the ground running on Monday and Tuesday by going to local recreation centers and talking to kids about voting. We were looking especially for high school students but when the “big kids” started signing the cards all the little ones wanted to do it too. So yeah, we ended up with a few voter pledge cards from some 12 year olds, but hey… can’t start early enough!
We had a one-on-one meeting this week with Mr. Tim Grant, director of Winston-Salem Parks and Recreation. He was very helpful and identified several upcoming opportunities for us to get into contact with lots of youth. He showed us all around the office, introduced us to everyone, and even referred us to a city-sponsored Youth Council that might be a good “focus group” for future youth-oriented Dem NC endeavors.
One of the events Mr. Grant told us about was the annual “Hang the Net” competition at Hanes Hoisery recreation center. The event featured Wake Forest basketball players, local street ball legends, Cameron Kent from WXII 12 News, and Coach Jim Caldwell of the Indianapolis Colts (see picture above). The event featured a three point shooting contest and slam dunk contest. We were able to set up a booth in the lobby and, with everyone lured nearby thanks to the free Frosty coupons, sign dozens of pledge cards to reach our goal.
This week also saw plenty of VAN phonebank action, as well as some short trips to Greensboro campuses to plan for fall GOTV. At North Carolina A&T University we met with Mrs. Nastasha Johnson at the Bluford Library, who then connected us into all the right people for our August plan to perform voter registration at the A&T Welcome Week.
I’m going to have to cut this blog post a little short since we have to get outta the office and back to Greensboro. We are doing some flier distribution today for next week’s Community Movie Night event with Mr. Darryl Hunt. We also hope to stop by the Beloved Community Center and liaison with Rev. Nelson Johnson, who is planning some GOTV efforts. We think there is a good opportunity for some collaboration.
We hope everyone is having a great week!
-Sean Maxwell and Ray Robinson
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Get Out the Vote, Tales From The Frontline, Winston-Salem, Youth Vote | No Comments »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Shock, awe and amazement. These three little words are the best ways to describe the reaction we get from Fayetteville’s citizens whenever we invite them to our neutral, informal City Council/ County Commissioner Meet and Greet. People, including some of the city council members and the county commissioners that have invited to the event, are having the hardest time believing this event is actually going to become a reality. ( “City Council AND County Commissioners in the same room? Together? Are you serious?/ WOW!!!” is the general response to our invitation.) Well, those non-believers will be in for a treat we host the meet and greet next Saturday. All the hard work An-Que, Ashley, and I have done these past couple of weeks will finally pay off in a open, friendly Meet and Greet that gives the general public access to the officials that oversee the details of their daily lives. This Meet and Greet also gives the officials the opportunity to talk to each other and join Democracy North Carolina as we attempt a county-wide Get Out The Vote (GOTV) training program.
As of right now, we have four confirmed guests to our Meet and Greet!!! I know that the three exclamation points that follow that statement seem a little unnecessary but considering that July is typically when most of these officials take time off for family vacations, an annual conference, and the like, it’s amazing that we got even that many officials to confirm. I’m hoping that the fact that all three groups will be represented (the people, the council, and the commissioners) will foster true,open, healthy dialogue, which in turn will lead to transparent actions towards change and progress.
WHEW! I know that is a lot of information to take in but because an intern’s job is never done ( gotta love progress and change) we’re already planning a Get Out The Vote training program in Wilmington, as well as a possible GOTV program among Fayetteville’s high schools. I’m so excited about all things we have going on in our field areas, but like I said, ” an intern’s job is never done” so I’ll have to get to you about all the progress we’re making later.
Until Next Time,
*Amanda*
P.S. We interviewed a few folks at Fayetteville’s mall and on the Fayetteville State campus, so look out for those blogs, they’re coming soon!!!!
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Fayetteville, Get Out the Vote, Tales From The Frontline | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 16th, 2010
Winston Lake YMCA Middle Schoolers
Another busy week has flown by, and it’s incredible that there are only two weeks remaining in our Democracy Summer experience. We had some great events occur this week which will go a long way to help our strategies for increased voter participation, youth civic engagement, and electoral reforms.
On Monday we traveled a few minutes down the road to the Winston Lake YMCA to speak with middle school kids who were participating in a Model U.N. club (picture above). We decided to employ a debate format that they already knew very well in order to get them thinking about youth participation in civic affairs. The students had plenty to say about problems in their schools and neighborhoods, they just needed someone to ask their opinion! We told them about the structure of the Forsyth County Board of Education and encouraged them to pay attention to local politics, current events, and to always stand up and voice their concerns. After this mini-workshop, Ray and I were destroyed in a quick pickup basketball game between us and two of the students. Our height advantage meant nothing and they seriously asked us if we were actually trying… embarrassing indeed!
Tuesday was probably the most eventful day of all this week. Ray and I had an informal interview with Jordan Green of YES!Weekly magazine, a publication in Greensboro that covers local events and politics. Mr. Green then came to our Guilford County GOTV meeting that evening. We had probably around 15 to 20 people show up to discuss ways to increase voter participation. It was a diverse group, from a rising 10th grader to a woman in her 80s. Everyone agreed that focusing on registration in turnout in the month right before an election was too little too late. The meeting generated lots of good feedback and some additional contacts in Greensboro to assist in Democracy NC’s mission. We will likely return to Guilford County to meet with some of the attendees who requested some GOTV and registration training.
Wednesday featured an extremely productive meeting with Dr. David Mount of the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He is Director of Community Outreach for the center, and told us about his strategies for connecting to other organizations and coalition building. He also gave us permission to come to various free community health fairs that are held around the county. At these events, residents in low-income neighborhoods can get free treatment and testing for illnesses and disease. He agreed that having information on civic engagement and voting rights would be helpful and that many facets of their mission overlap with Democracy NC’s goals too. Later that afternoon we met with Mr. T.C. Muhammad in Greensboro, who is involved in GOTV efforts and the Hip Hop Caucus. He gave us numerous contacts in the Guilford County area as well as some avenues to check out at NC A&T University. Hopefully Dem NC can team up with Mr. Muhammad in the fall for some major GOTV campaigns.
Thursday involved a return to the Winston Lake YMCA for a talk with some high school students. It followed a similar format as our Monday meeting, but obviously the discussion was a little more nuanced and we could register them to vote! They also signed some of our Youth pledge cards. It was amazing listening to their stories, particularly one student who was not only captain of his football team, but also worked nearly full-time at Sonic to pay for his own food and car insurance as well as take care of his younger cousins. The responsibility he was shouldering was inspiring and at the same time made our efforts to get their voices heard feel much more meaningful.
On top of all these experiences we have been phonebanking and planning for a voter registration and youth pledge card drive. And tomorrow we are attending the Stone Soul Picnic in Burlington. It’s been a busy week but it has felt good!
Until next time,
Sean Maxwell (and Ray Robinson)
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Get Out the Vote, Tales From The Frontline, Winston-Salem, Youth Vote | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010
Time is really flying. I looked at the calender today and said, “WHOA”. I’m pretty sure all the other interns feel the same way. Who knew theses days would pass by so fast?!
Jenn and I went to a Drinking Liberally book club meeting at the Traction house last week. That was great. The people there were really friendly. On Saturday we went out to Fayetteville for a banquet that was held by a group of African American Muslims, where Jenn was the key note speaker. She did a great job. They had a bunch of workshops that we did not get to attend, but we did make it for the dinner. The food was AMAZING. It was so interesting to listen and learn about their religion and other aspects of their culture. Everyone there was very welcoming. I should have taken a plate home (they offered!). Yesterday Jenn and I were on WCOM Radio hosted by Bill Hendrickson. My very first radio show! It was great.
With everything that’s going on, I finally feel like my efforts are making a difference somewhere. I have been doing speaking engagements at NCCU and I went to Athens Drive High School (where I graduated from) to do some voter registration and get some VOE post-cards signed. Its strange. For some reason people are very hesitant about getting registered to vote, but they’ll quickly put their information on a post-card. I just don’t understand that. Anyways, it is safe to say that I’m making progress. I’m waiting to hear back from a few community centers in the Raleigh/Durham area. And I am also in the process of contacting the Women’s Center of NCCU. Hopefully I can make some things happen before the month is up. The clock is tickin’ away and we all still have a lot to get accomplished!
Peace, Love, & Politics,
Juanita
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Durham, Tales From The Frontline | 1 Comment »
Monday, July 12th, 2010
So a main part of our week was our time spent at JCSU during freshman orientation. We were there Thursday and Friday from 7:30 am- 5:00 pm registering the new students to vote in Charlotte. We reached our 100 goal!! Erica and I had to hand paint signs that said “Sign Up Here To Vote! Be Part Of Our Community” and we were the only booth without at tent. At least they had free water for us and we got to eat in the cafeteria for free. It was really fun to see how excited the students were to register, especially the ones who were registering for the first time! They were really interested because Erica, being student body president, told them about the rides to the polls that the university was doing and explained how everyone was going to go vote together.
We are in the final stretch before our July 24th event and all the colleges but one have accepted our invitation to participate! We are making the final preparations to film the Public Service Announcement, arrange seating and speakers, and arrange food to be ordered. We have three days of phonebanking this week but I feel like we have met so many of our summer goals already! There is always something new for us to do, some new obstacle to overcome and in the end I feel our all our work this summer will be worth it!
Alannah & Erica– Charlotte!!
Posted in Charlotte, Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Tales From The Frontline | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 9th, 2010
After a very nice long weekend it’s back to work here in G-vegas. This week we are focusing getting the word out about the coalition meeting in Washington on the 16th. We are hoping for a great turnout. We are also working to increase the youth GOTV pledges. The summer is flying past and I didn’t realize that we only have a few more weeks. I, of course wish there were youth around which would of course make getting the youth GOTV pledges a lot easier. We spent Tuesday in Washington meeting with the Board of Elections and a prominent minister and community organizer Rev. David Moore. We heard very two different sides of the current conditions of Beaufort County’s political community. The Board gave us the much skewed impression that Beaufort County had the best voting average in all of NC and that there wasn’t any need for improvement. We felt as if they were being very defensive when we offered to help with the lack of voter participation. Rev. Moore painted another picture. After waiting for the busy Reverend to get off of his cell, computer and conference call, all of which he was on at the same time we discussed the problem with the youth voters. He advised us to take direct action and hit the problem full force.
Also, we are looking forward to going to Wilson Saturday to attend the African American Family Day, where Ana and I will be registering new voters and spreading the word about GOTV!
Until Next time
Joyce
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Greenville, Tales From The Frontline | No Comments »
Friday, July 9th, 2010
After a much deserved vacation, Joyce and I regrouped to brainstorm over ways to engage the community in our last couple of weeks. We struck gold last week with our Pitt County Coalition meeting where Dr.Powers ( the best Sociology professor) was able to link us with the Interfaith Alliance director to get more faith centers involved with our ‘Souls to the Polls’ event. Also, Pastor Coles updated me on the status of my interview that will be available on DVD. ( I’m hitting Hollywood hard!) After I receive the copy of the DVD, I will load it on the democracy-nc.org website to grace you all with my spectacular interviewing skills. On Tuesday, we met with Rev. Moore who was able to fit us in his busy schedule ( by busy schedule, I mean we had to sit in on all his phone calls) and he discussed with us ways to get Beaufort County on the right direction towards a successful voter turn out this November.
We have scheduled a voter training schedule with Jovenes Lations en Accion where most of the teens are eligible to pre-regrister. On a even more successful note, I got a warm reception from the Minority Voice organization that will allow us to add an article on Democracy NC and a possible interview.
Tomorrow we will be over in Wilson at the African American Family Day Festival, where we will have a booth to register new voters and talk to people about Dem NC, voting, and much more!!!!
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Greenville, Tales From The Frontline | 2 Comments »
Friday, July 9th, 2010
This week, despite being shortened due to the Independence Day Holiday, has been jam-packed with activities. Ray and I settled back into our office on Tuesday and began implementing our plans for our many events coming up this month. On Wednesday we had some meetings with community activists in both Forsyth and Guilford Counties, and on Thursday we threw our effort toward generating phone calls to the N.C. General Assembly.
Next week, we will be leading two youth forums at the Winston Lake YMCA for kids in their Youth Achiever programs. The Boys and Girls Club is also sending participants. We have been in constant contact with the program managers at the Y, finalizing our agenda and confirming our message. We even were able to bring in City Councilwoman D.D. Adams as a guest speaker for the kids. In addition to these two programs, we have organized a Greensboro Coalition meeting on July 13th for GOTV planning and discussions on electoral reform. All in all, next week is sure to be busy, but it will be exciting to see all of our planning come together and result in something positive for the community.
This week on Wednesday, we met with Mr. Michael Thomas of the Goodwill Re-Entry program in Winston-Salem. We talked about his work in the prison system and his classes for re-integration into society, finding a job, and becoming a productive citizen. We were able to provide him with voter registration forms and informational literature about regaining citizenship rights after being incarcerated. Later in the afternoon, we met Mr. Fahiym Hanna, who operates in Guilford County. He is our age and already has his own grassroots organizing experience through various community groups. We spoke with him about reaching out to Guilford County youth and what organizations could assist us in our mission for youth civic engagement and voter participation. Both meetings were highly informative and certainly aided us in our mission for GOTV.
Thursday was almost a complete blur. Coming into work in the afternoon, HQ alerted us that the N.C. House was considering Senate Bill 20, which aimed to incrementally expand Voter-Owned Elections to the state Treasurer’s Race and for one additional municipality. We began making calls to past supporters in the early evening, encouraging them to contact their elected officials. We had also organized a W-S Voting Rights Coalition community meeting in our office for GOTV planning that night, so we had all the participants call both their Senator and Representatives in the General Assembly (see pictures at top). Thursday’s events proved that everything moves so unexpectedly in the legislative process. It really forces activists to constantly adapt and quickly respond with little warning.
In other news, we have moved the date for our Greensboro community movie night to later in July so that Darryl Hunt can come speak. Also in the works… a youth forum for high school students to motivate and train them to register their fellow classmates to vote in the fall. We already have space booked at the public library, and are currently in the process of contacting these students that indicated they were interested in such an activity.
So, it’s definitely been another packed week here in Winston-Salem, but we are very excited about our upcoming events and our GOTV and youth civic engagement efforts. I think it’s safe to say we are virtually “humming” on all cylinders.
Until next time,
Sean Maxwell and Ray Robinson
Tags: Democracy Summer 2010, GOTV, Voter-Owned Elections, Winston-Salem, Youth Vote
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Tales From The Frontline, Winston-Salem | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, July 6th, 2010
This week Alannah, Robert, and I are going to college freshmen orientations to register the incoming freshmen to vote. Hopefully we’ll be able to pull these excited students into the trend that we’re trying to create for the Charlotte college community.
Tomorrow kicks off our 2nd month with Homeland Security. I feel like we’re a big part of their becoming naturalized citizens now.
We’re down to the wire now we it comes to our July 24th Can You Hear Us Now? event. It looks like there might be 5 out of 6 schools participating and that’s a really good number for something like this.
Oh, last night I was at work and my coworkers were saying nothing will ever be fixed in politics because policians are always funded by some company. It made me think of VOE. Pretty cool & random.
Well that’s it for now… Talk to you next blog.
Sending up prayers…
Much love, peace, & happiness <3
Erica
Posted in Charlotte, Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Tales From The Frontline | No Comments »
Monday, July 5th, 2010
We’re famous! Actually, not really, we were just featured in the Sunday edition of the Washington Daily News. We shared our input of the organization and why we are so active in politics. After our interview the reporter showed us around the newspaper, which is ancient. He showed us where the original papers were printed and the old complex machines. Washington Daily News won a Pulitzer Award for an article about the water in Eastern NC. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Check us out www.wdnweb.com!
Ana and I made this week out “church week”. We started in Greenville with a few churches Ana chose. We were going around doing our “GOTV” work and trying to get partners for the ‘Souls to the Polls’ in November. It was difficult to get a hold of members at a church on a Monday, so we decided to go another day. We had a much better response in Washington. We even landed a meeting a very prominent minister and community leader to discuss GOTV efforts in Washington.
Today (Wednesday) we have our first coalition meeting in Greenville! I hope there’s a good turnout in spite of the weather. We’ll definably keep everyone up to date.
Hope everyone enjoys the lonnng weekend!! I know I will!
Happy 4th Be safe!
Joyce & Ana
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Greenville, Tales From The Frontline | No Comments »
Thursday, July 1st, 2010
After last week’s disappointing results in the NC Senate, we got back to work this week on Voter-Owned Elections and other initiatives like felon re-enfranchisement and youth voter education. In some good news, the NC House is currently considering expanding public financing to the statewide Treasurer’s race and allowing an additional municipality to implement their own VOE program (Chapel Hill already used VOE in their 2009 elections). This week, Ray and I have been phonebanking to reach out to citizens in conservative Democratic house districts that are sure to be the deciding factor for this important legislation. Although these measures in the House are not nearly as comprehensive as the Senate’s plan was, it is still an important positive step in the right direction.
Earlier this week, our team met to discuss and plan out some of our upcoming events in July. One of our main projects this summer is to reach out to area youth and get them civically engaged and tuned into local politics. When people know who their elected officials and what their responsibilities are, they can begin to take action for their own interests. It’s our job to alert youth to the important issues that affect them and let them know what they can do about it. In July we will have several events at a local YMCA. We will be holding forums about things like local education cuts and school board policies. The students will debate and hone their thoughts into arguments. Then we will perform a workshop about how to effectively contact local officials. Ray and I are very excited to work with local middle and high school kids. If they become interested in their communities at an early age, it’s more likely they become civically engaged and hold their leaders accountable. And that is a victory for society at large.
In addition to planning out these events, we have been scheduling various meetings with community leaders. Next week, we will meet Dr. David Mount, the director of community outreach at the Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity and Wake Forest Baptist Hospital. The Angelou center specializes on research and policy work to correct health care disparities in low-income and minority neighborhoods. We will also be meeting Mr. Michael Thomas of the Goodwill Re-Entry Program for ex-felons. He works to re-integrate them into society and provides support. We will talk to him about our initiatives encouraging ex-felons to re-register and become voters.
At the top of our priorities list are two meetings we are organizing in Guilford County. The first is to bring together various groups in Greensboro and Guilford County to talk about GOTV efforts and electoral reform at a local church. The second is a community dinner and movie night block party in downtown Greensboro. We have partnered with a local group called Food Not Bombs to cook a dinner, and we will show the documentary “The Trials of Darryl Hunt” on a big screen outside the HIVE community center. Click this link to check out the Darryl Hunt Project’s website: http://www.darrylhuntproject.org/film.html
All of this will serve as an opportunity for discussion of local issues and a way for residents to connect with one another. It’s a huge undertaking and we have been collecting and gathering all our contacts in the Greensboro area. With Linda’s help we have generated a multiple page list of e-mail addresses and organizations and have created a public service announcement to release to the local media. Hopefully with some more dedication over the next two weeks we can pull it off!
Here’s to hard work!
-Sean Maxwell (and Ray Robinson)
Tags: Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, Democracy Summer 2010, Get Out the Vote, Greensboro, Voter-Owned Elections, Winston-Salem, Youth Vote
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Tales From The Frontline, Winston-Salem | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 28th, 2010
What a long week! It started off with some bad news regarding the venue of July 24th event. So while we were running around like chickens with our heads cut off, we were also finishing up the final touches for Lobby Day. Then Tuesday morning we were up bright and early to ride out with our van of concerned citizens at 6:30 A.M. I’ve never gone to Lobby Day and so it was certainly a new experience for me. We met with Legislators and it was exciting to see how certain processes go.
After Lobby Day, it seemed as though Alannah and I were traveling all around Charlotte to fix our venue fiasco. At first it looked like their was no such luck… until today. We decided to try a stretch this morning and now it looks like everything is working out. And now it even looks like it’s working out even better than it would have. That just shows you that when you plan something amazing and the only thing that goes wrong is something small, you have no choice but to fix it. If you don’t, the failure is your fault.
We met with Queens University on Friday; thumbs up! We met with the Latin American Coalition on Saturday; double thumbs!
Until next blog…
Much love, peace, & happiness <3
Erica
Posted in Charlotte, Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Tales From The Frontline | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 28th, 2010
I know I’m not the only one who will be addressing my disappointment with the outcome of the Ethics bill. This is the first time I have experienced the side of politics that makes me feel completely defeated. Robert’s outlook is that this is the job and we’ll go back at it next year and keep fighting for it but when victory was so close my energy deflated when I read that Nesbitt agreed to gut the Ethics bill and completely take out Voter-Owned Elections. The hardest part was that we were part of it. We were in the building on Lobby Day, listening to the committees push this bill through, talking to legislators and seeing all the support for the public campaign financing and in one day all the support was forgotten.
Though we lost a battle against corporate money, I learned a lot about this job and the people who do it. The fight is ongoing and there may never be effective progress yet I’ve learned that even though you win some and you lose some all that matters is that you stood up for something that you believed in. On a brighter side, this experience has given us a lot of insight into our next moves. The first step I would take would be mass education about Voter-Owned Elections. Just listening to the robo-calls and hearing the stance the other side has taken against VOE offers up a stable defense for us to build upon.
Our Charlotte University Collaboration is going well. We are in the final stages of solidifying everything to be sent out to the individual schools so now, it’s a waiting game. Good luck to everyone!
Alannah- Charlotte
Posted in Charlotte, Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Tales From The Frontline, Voter-Owned Elections | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
This week in the wonderful world of organizing we attended Lobby Day in Raleigh at the General Assembly. It was a day of good experiences and disappointments. The morning started off bright and super early. I met the Washington group in the parking lot of Wal-mart at 6:30 am and we headed to Greenville to meet up with the rest of the Greenville team. The ride up there was very entertaining to say the least. Conversation was very lively and the youth who came with us loosened up as the trip went along. The General Assembly was a very busy place. The Legislators were all running to and fro from one meeting to the next. I’m still not sure whether they were running to meetings or away from us? Regardless I enjoyed the experience, it was a lot different from being page so many years ago. It was a really good feeling to see the faces of the youth as they walked the halls of the legislative building.
My favorite part of the day was defiantly the presentation by Larry Lessing. He shared a view of campaign finance reform that I’ve never seen or heard before. It was creative and very informative. He also had one of the best power-points I’ve ever seen! The kids also seemed really impressed with the presentation. The energy was high and positive with “THE BILL” being discussed; we all knew we would be popping champagne the next day at work with good news. But unfortunately all things don’t work out the way they should. We had a setback but we are going to continue to push for what is right and what is good for the citizens of NC and the country.
LOVE PEACE AND CHICKEN GREASE
Joyce
GVEGAS team
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Greenville, Tales From The Frontline, Voter-Owned Elections | No Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
To say this week was a little bit crazy would be an understatement. Stating of on Monday, Joyce and I met for breakfast with Washington Council-member William Pitt to discuss Washington’s economic development and how politics run in Washington. Joyce and I were also given a grand tour of Washington, which Joyce didn’t really need considering she grew up in this town, but we were still thankful.Out of the politicians we have met, Mr.Pitt was truly a character who was not shy in providing his two cents for almost every topic. At the end of the meeting (which lasted a little over 3 hours), Joyce and I were ready for a distraction. But we kept it moving by arranging plans for LOBBY DAY. I was excited to see we had a full van of constituents from Pitt County and Beaufort County. We teamed up with Juvencio Peralta, director of NALACC, and invited eight teens from Jovenes Latinos en Accion to attend Lobby Day.
Lobby Day was very intense, chaotic, exciting, and most importantly: motivational. Arriving at the General Assembly building made everything we’ve been prepping for come to real life. Our first meeting was with A.B. Swindell was a chance encounter since his L.A gave us the disappointing news that he could not meet us. However, he could escape us and talked to us in the hallway. It was a little disturbing when he stated talking in Spanish to us. I hope he wasn’t tying to impress us with his bilingual skills because we were thrown of guard more than anything. The best part of Lobby Day came during the presentation of Larry Lessig, who is a great public speaker. All of the teens who came with the Greenville team discussed how motivated they were by his presentation. This was like music to Joyce and I’s ears.
Unfortunately, all the good moments were met with some distrubing news. After hearing about the Senate’s decision to take out the public finance piece out, I was disappointed with our Senators mainly. When we first head about the news, Shaunee, Joyce and I were preparing to deliver a presentation to the Beaufort County Democratic Women group. It helped to be distracted with this presentation so we could remember to continue fighting the good fight for clean elections and a true democracy!
Best wishes for the weekend!
Congratulations to all the summer interns!
Ana & Joyce
Posted in Civic Engagement, Democracy Summer, Democracy Summer 2010, Greenville, Tales From The Frontline, Voter-Owned Elections | No Comments »
