In Retrospect…A look back at the summer

Ok, so over the past couple of weeks sans Democracy North Carolina, I had a chance to look back and reminisce about the summer and things that I took away from this experience.

This summer was a blessing in many respects…First of all, I got an opportunity to apply principles of community organizing that I had only heard about through reading about social movements and great leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It gave me and the other organizers a clear picture of the work that it takes to inform the public about practical reforms to the democratic process, mobilize these voters to the polls or their legislators offices (as we did during lobby day), and convincing these legislators to enact policies that make government more responsive to voters of North Carolina. I learned some great lessons that apply not only to pushing for campaign finance reform, but how public opinion and grassroots organizing can be used to promote other good government reforms.

I grew a lot personally from this internship. I established some great relationships this summer and look forward to continuing them in the future. I was made fun of in the Durham office (thanks Jenn and Cristina) for my occasional “runs” and lack of a sense of direction, but it was cool and we were able to do a lot more than I expected over the course of the summer.

In retrospect, I really miss those drives to Durham and the conversations I had with Katy about Durham politics, Molly’s obsession with tennis, Leigh’s improptu Jam Sessions and Jenn’s random injuries…(just kidding). I’m really glad that I got a chance to spend time with everyone and get to know them on a more personal level.

All in all, Democracy North Carolina was one of the most challenging, thought-provoking, fun and rewarding experiences that I have ever had and I am extremely grateful for the experience. I would definitely recommend this internship to anyone interested in learning more about community organizing or North Carolina politics, or just seeking to be involved with creating change in their community and state.

Best,

Brian

OH Sarah….really?

First of all, I hate saying good bye. As many people may have figured our by now, I’m a pretty upbeat person. I like to laugh, I LOVE to make jokes, and I genuinely like forming friendships with people. I put this blog off until the last possible moment because when I press ‘publish,’ I know it will be the end. Now that I’ve depressed everyone, here it is: My final blog.

Last Saturday in the QC, America, Robert and I threw the most rockin’ luau the 704 has EVER seen. We had Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets, Orange, Red AND Blue Hawaiian Punch, brightly-colored tablecloths, plastic necklaces (those Hawaiian things, I can’t get the spell checker to work) and most importantly macadamia nut cookies! With the help of our wonderful Charlotte advocate, Page Lee, we were able to host 12 or so people and have a real discussion about Democracy Summer and all our work. We raised close to $200 and really enjoyed an evening of good food and pleasant conversation. Plus, no one brought out their knitting needles!

We also experienced a new kind of phonebanking this week at Dem NC. Instead of homemade spreadsheets, we utilized a new technology: ACTIVATE. We programmed a calling number into the program and the program dialed from a spreadsheet of registered voters, weeding out wrong numbers, answering machines and disconnected numbers, and then connected to the office of whichever senator we were trying to reach. While this seemed exciting and novel, by the end of the three hours, that beeping sounded like a speaker at Sonic Drive In during happy hour (Sonic VET after 2 LONG years). I’m not joking; I had nightmares about that beep. However, despite some struggle with the new-fangled equipment, we had a good number of people contacting either Tony Rand or Linda Garrou.

Thinking back over my experiences with Democracy North Carolina, I’ve learned a lot of things. For example, America has about 10 different types of nods, each nod deeper depending on the extent to which she agrees with you, most people aren’t afraid to tell you they just had their colon removed and no, they will not call their representative, and most importantly, compassion is the strongest and most powerful emotion I’ve ever witnessed in a human being. Compassion for equality, compassion for democracy and compassion for others drives reformers to do the thing that challenges them, overwhelms them or the things that seem impossible. I deeply admire and respect every member of Democracy North Carolina. This internship has helped me realize that compassion resides in every one of us; we just have to be brave enough to follow wherever it leads us. I’ve learned people will listen to what I have to say, if I take the time to articulate it. I’ve learned we can all be heroes, if we are willing to bear the burden of inspiration and endure the difficulties of disappointment. We are all capable, we are all qualified, we now must reach for the stars.

To all my fellow interns: Thank you so much for making every step of this journey unforgettable. I cherish each and every memory we have made, and look back on every phone script run-through, ice-breaker and tic-infested meal with a smile. America: I am so thankful to have spent the last 9 weeks with you. I don’t know if I could have endured DHS, the Blackberry Brunch, ACORN gnats or the 60 year old creepers with anyone but you. Thank you for making me laugh everyday, and truly brightening up the watt-less office. To Robert and my supervisors: thanks for taking a chance on me, and allowing me to represent Democracy North Carolina. I cannot express how grateful I am for all the training and experience, and the gift of interacting with such wonderful individuals each and everyday.

Love Always,
Sarah (Charlotte)

It’s NOT Goodbye, More like see ya’ll later!

I want to begin this reflection by saying, all of ya’ll are amazing people for different reasons and I am extremely grateful I was able to experience this opportunity.

First, I have been able to extend my passion for advocacy. I have learned that there is a deeper layer of advocacy and grassroots organizing. Previously, I thought that when working towards change it took A LOT of people to make things happen, you know strength in numbers. But really it is about strength and passion those involved whether its 4 or 400 people. 

I also have begun to attack my fear of public speaking. My issues with Public Speaking began when I started to gain weight and it has been a battle ever since. I have let low-self esteem take away my voice and my power. It made me second guess raising my hand in class or even speaking up with Robert and Sarah. During Democracy Summer, I took the time to address these issues and figure out how to regain my voice. Jenn said it best during Efland training when she told me to “lean into it”. I took these words, digested them and began to live by her advice. (Thank you, Jenn!)

Democracy Summer has given me the resources and tools to effectively lead advocacy work on campus.  I have learned to be flexible, hold others accountable and admit when I have too much on my plate. I know that because of these tools, I can go back and be an even better president of the Student Global AIDS Campaign.

Lastly, I have met awesome people. I have established relationships both personal and professional during these 9 weeks. I have networked and created future job opportunities, I have established campus connections with UNCC and CPCC.  Although, there has been rocky situations and tension Sarah and I have become close. Whenever I lost my train of thought during a speaking engagement, she could pick up where I left off or if she needed reassurance, all she had to do was look about 10 inches down and there I was, nodding back at her.

Sitting here, I have realized that Democracy Summer has given me a lot more than I expected and realized. A new sense of self, strength, confidence and re- lit my passion to be an advocate.

Thank you all for this experience and I sincerely hope that we all will continue to Facebook chat, have lunch and hang out!

America – 704!

So hard to say GOODBYE!

Time really seems to fly when you are working hard! Especially for CHANGE! So now our internship is pretty much over and it is time to reflect on my summer with Democracy NC…

First, I have met many influential and inspirational people that believe in change and are out here trying actually change things! I had the opportunity to learn so much about the politics of NC because before this internship I was not the most civically engaged person. I have always been intrested in advocacy work but not so much in how to do something about the issues that I am passionate about.

Secondly, I have new experience in hosting events, fundraising, reaching out to the media and dealing with people more! I learned that organizing is all about the people because the people are who put these politicians into office.  However, I also saw first hand how some people just don’t care about the world around them or making a difference when we were out here phone banking, trying to get post cards signed etc.  Then there were the people who would surprise you and those who reached out to help when we needed it.  I learned skills from this intern that can help me on my future career endeavors and also in life.

Lastly, I got to work with some really great people.   Jackie always had my back as I had hers.  We worked it out and always got whatever needed to be done done.  Adam and Ashley are both great at what they do and I learned so much from them not just about organizing but about other things as well.  I also got to know the other organizers and interns as well.

Democracy Summer was a great experience for me.  I will miss everyone and always have the experiences and skills to remember.

Signing Out,

Reniki

Final Reflections

Democracy Summer overall was an amazing experience. This experience allowed me to meet all types of people and interact in different situations that I would have never been able to otherwise. One of the best examples was Lobby Day. The preparation for Lobby Day was tedious and tiresome. Reniki and I were constantly calling legislators to schedule meetings and calling people in each legislator’s district for support. In addition, we were phone banking twice a week trying to get people to these meetings in Raleigh. Another preparation was transportation. We told all of our guests that if transportation was an issue, we would provide it for them. Luckily, after calling to confirm and give directions everyone had a ride. Then came the day! Lobby Day was finally there. This allowed the interns a chance to talk with legislators about important issues. What I took away from that experience was that legislators really wanted to know what the people had to say. That made me feel that all of our hard work that we were accomplishing over the summer wouldn’t go to waste.

Today, I feel that Reniki and I have proven my prediction. All of our hard work seems to be helping our bills, SB 966 and HB 1260. Hopefully, after the budget is passed our bills will be passed shortly after. I am pretty confident that these bills will turn out successful in the future. The only thing about these bills that upsets me is that the summer is over and we won’t be able to celebrate together. I hope all of the interns keep in touch with me and have a great rest of the summer. Any of you can Facebook me at any time! I’d love to hear what you all are up to in the future. I hope that we will never lose touch and thank you for all being extremely friendly. I enjoyed all the times we spent together and hope that everyone got what they wanted out of this experience. I did! I can’t wait to see you all at the party. We definitely had some good times.  Jackie

Fayetteville Upward Bound

The Fayetteville Team went to speak to the teens of Upward Bound at Fayetteville State University. When we first arrived on campus, I felt unsure of how the teens would react to our presentation and the HB 1260 bill. I hoped every teen would be as excited as Reniki and I were about the bill. Also, I had never worked with teenagers before and I didn’t know what to expect. Reniki used to be a tutor for Freshman English and kept saying how teens loved to express their opinions, which kinda made me nervous. When we went inside the building, the Upward Bound organizer was there to greet us. She was extremely friendly and immediately took us to where the teens were. Then we split up the teens into two small groups and searched for a building we could use. After walking back and forth through the hot heat of Fayetteville weather, we found a room. It was in the first building were we started. Our first group consisted of 15 to 17 year old teens. Just as Reniki had said they had a lot of opinions, but it was because they were interested. Everyone was paying attention and they even wrote a paragraph each on how HB 1260 would be a bill that would help them. However, when the second group walked in, I realized they were going to be different. This group of teenagers were a lot younger and seemed to be more energetic then the last group. Still, they were very interested in politics and most of the teens participated in the presentation. Overall, It was an amazing experience and I feel each teen learned the importance of being civically minded.     Jackie

Greenville Checking In:

It’s been a while since I’ve last blogged, but we’ve been so busy down here in Greenville that I’ve barely had time!

The month of July seemed to seriously fly by and I cannot believe we’re already in our last week! We’ve done so much, including hosting Pitt County’s first-ever Democracy North Carolina Open House and having the wonderful Tracy Burton throw a terrific house party where Brittany and I gave our best presentation to date!

Both of us also had letters to the editor in the Greenville Daily Reflector:
http://www.reflector.com/opinion/demand-democracy-and-clean-elections-722183.html

We’ve also had some interesting experiences with the locals at the Pitt Community College Summer Splash event. The three of us went to PCC to register people to vote and ended up getting invited to be a part of the G-vegas magazine’s swimsuit calendar, which we were told is “tasteful enough for your grandmother to put on her wall.”

I’ll let you decided: Classy or Trashy?
http://www.g-vegasmagazine.com/

But, other than that we’ve been really busy around here with a lot of speaking engagements with the Lions Club of Ayden, Beaufort County NAACP and Beaufort County Democratic Women.

I cannot wait to see everyone and their final presentations of learning on Thursday! It’s been an amazing summer and I’m truly sad that everything has been said and done. Love you Dem NC and keep fighting the good fight for clean elections!

- Katy

From knitting needles to papasan chairs, professionalism at its finest.

Since I haven’t blogged in a while, I’m going to take you back to a couple of weeks ago when America, Robert and I spoke at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Senior Democrats meeting. We were coming from a sit down with a writer for the Charlotte Post. Herb, a JCSU alum (evidenced by his collared polo bearing the school name), interviewed America and I concerning our responsibilities this summer and our reactions to performing those duties. We talked to him about the ups and downs of phonebanking, political cynicism as well as devotion, and campaign finance reform being the gateway to all other political issues. All in all, it was a productive sit down. Anyway, back to the speaking engagement: we were scheduled to talk to the senior democrats about Voter Owned Elections and the need for passing SB 966. Their fearless leader Sam Brown is also a member of Common Cause, a group that we know are allies of our issues, so we were optimistic about their reception of us. When we arrived, the senior dems were chowing down on their picnic lunches and discussing housekeeping issues. We were welcomed to the podium following a candidate for the Board of Education America and I introduced ourselves, the organization and the issues while Robert passed out postcards and handouts urging the senior dems to contact Tony Rand. We were on fire! The dems were open and engaged, nodding their heads, asking questions, all was well, until we realized someone had pulled out their knitting needles…Go us! However, we managed to collect a handful of postcards and moderate a lively discussion about campaign finance reform and voter owned elections. Not to mention, we were also privvy to a jawdropping passive aggressive verbal altercation regarding raffle ticket behavior… oh snap. Robert also recieved a sobering sneak peak at his inevitable end.

Last Wednesday (July 15th) and this Monday (July 20), America and I were allotted the opportunity to share with Time Out Youth, a LGBTQI (the “I” stands for Inter Sex yeah, I didn’t know there was an I either) center for youth ages 13-23 yrs old, the importance of pre-registration for youth. The facility was the coolest thing I have ever encountered in the basement of a church. It had an air hockey table, a gaming system, a library complete with books and dvds, a papasan chair (those circular ones that swallow your body when you sit in them) and get this: a handprint rainbow mural with, yes, three diminsional puffy clouds. Pretty sweet, right? After briefly expressing my enamoration with the wall and taking a diving leap into the papasan chair, I regained professionalism and America, Robert and I delivered what turned into be a Q and A session about high school civics classes and motor voter laws. We also left the group with Voter Registration Forms we had lifted from the Department of Homeland Security so they could register the eligible members for the municipal and mayoral elections in Charlotte this fall.

Unfortuately I don’t have any new clever anecdotes about Homeland Security, except this man requested to stand sandwiched between America and I waving his new country’s flag while having his picture taken. Flattering? Yes. Odd? Slightly.

It’s hard to believe that only a week and a half of Democracy Summer remains. Looking back on the past 7.5 weeks, it’s hard to name a single emotion that describes my experiences. Certainly there have been struggles and mishaps, frustrations and annoyances, but on the whole it’s been enjoyable. I don’t want to steal thunder from my concluding blog, so I’m leaving a quote I found while searching for our VOE powerpoints…

“If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.” -Aristotle.

Sarah, Charlotte Team

Speaking in Davie County

This past week us interns, had the chance to speak at the Democratic Headquaters in Davie County. Now that was definatley a LONG drive from Greensboro, and the meeting was held at the City courthouse. We were welcomed to a large group of senior citizens, and some old lady who every five minutes mentioned something about seducing more people to come, quite AKWARD! Outside of that Shae shined as ususal, and I was quite PRESTIGIOUS! Suprisingly I got no constructive criticism from Jonathan, so I’ll take it as a job well done. Overall, it was a very successful meeting.

The final stretch!

DURHAM: It’s hard to believe we have two weeks left at Democracy NC… the summer is going by so fast! And although I look forward to going back to UNC for my last year of college, I’m really going to miss this internship. For the past month and a half, I have been learning so much about what it means to be a community organizer. On Tuesday, Brian and I visited YO:Durham, an organization dedicated to serving at-risk youth in Durham. We talked to about 30 students ages 15-17 for an hour and a half. They were so much fun! They were up doing skits and lots of group work the whole time. The theme of the morning was how they could bring change to their communities… it was like a mini-Wellstone training! I was struck by the way that these young people could really pick out the problems that they face in their homes, schools, and neighborhoods, and how they were able to communicate those problems. I was even more struck by the solutions that they thought of; they were so creative! It was encouraging to see these kids show a genuine interest in changing the life of their communities.

Another big project we worked on this week was our research project, which consisted of looking up campaign contributions from people appointed to different boards and commissions by former Governor Mike Easley. We definitely got to see first hand that there’s LOTS of money going to political campaigns from NOT a lot of different people!

As the week winds down, we’ve been less crazy than we have been for the last 7 weeks… it’s nice to have time to sit down and read some recent news articles about voter-owned elections and post on our blog!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

-Cristina