Hey everyone! Today’s volunteer roundup is divided into 3 parts: how to help for the upcoming primary states, how to help in states that are gearing up for November, and *drumroll* how to help if you hate phone banking and door-knocking!
The Primary
This Tuesday, we have Oregon and Kentucky to look forward to, so I’ll focus on those two states for now—we’ll have a few weeks after today to gear up for the June 7 primaries. Personally, I am pretty excited for Kentucky...I am actually road tripping down there this weekend with some fellow Hillary volunteers to help with GOTV. No idea what it will be like, but I’m sure there will be stories to tell afterwards, as usual! Anyway, if you live in Kentucky, or are close enough to hop over this weekend, here is the field office info. If you show up, they’ll have something for you to do, whether it’s phone banking, canvassing, or data entry.
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Louisville: 1357 Bardstown Road, Louisville, Kentucky 40204
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Lexington: 1301 Winchester Road #37, Lexington, Kentucky 40505
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Frankfort: 324 West Main, Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
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Covington: 128 Pike Street #1, Covington, Kentucky 41011
As for Oregon, if you go to the official campaign events page and type in your city and/or zipcode, you can take your pick of canvassing/phone banking events near you. There’s quite a bit going on in Portland, Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene if you can make it to any of those events. If you can register ahead of time, great, but for most of these sorts of things, if you just show up, they’ll find a way to put you to work.
If you can’t go help out in person for either Kentucky or Oregon, as you all know by now, I am a strong proponent of making calls from home. The Kentucky and Oregon portals are up and ready to go, so grab your phone, make a cup of tea, and get dialing!
**Volunteer tip of the week: If you’re using your own cell phone to make calls (and if it’s a smart phone) set up a Google Voice account with a separate phone number to use for phone banking purposes. This keeps any call backs from people you missed from ringing on your main number.**
The General
Hillary (and broadly speaking, the Democratic party) is already beginning to lay the groundwork in key swing states for the general election. My understanding is that right now, efforts are being geared toward voter registration. Sign up to volunteer in the following states, and help Team Blue win up and down ballot:
Help! I want to volunteer, but I hate phone banking/canvassing! What should I do?
Never fear! While canvassing and phone banking certainly have a vital place in GOTV operations, they are by no means the only way you can help. Some other ideas for you:
- If you are into social media outreach, Tweet for Hillary!
- Love cooking and/or baking? Make some cookies/sandwiches/spanikopita for the volunteers at your local field office. Can’t cook at all? Bring over a case of water bottles or a few pizzas. Either way, the volunteers will love you.
- Diana in NoVa wrote a great diary the other day, How to Help Hillary without Canvassing or Phone Banking. There are lots of ideas in it and in the comments, so definitely give it a read! However, one thing she talks about really stands out: the idea of having an “elevator speech” ready for day-to-day interactions.
Some of us can’t or won’t phonebank; some of us can’t or won’t canvass for whatever reason—mobility issues, for example. But we all, even if we’re graduate students working a full-time job and going to class in the evenings, interact with others every day. We have conversations. Sometimes we discuss politics.
What I’m proposing is that we develop a 30-second “elevator speech” to define our candidate or counter a specious argument. We can work on a standard speech together and tailor it to our individual circumstances, neighborhood, or whatever. When my daughter-in-law’s sister, in town from California last autumn, told me that Hillary was cold and calculating, I was so stunned I couldn’t think of a reply.
Simply giving the facts in a polite manner and smiling after you finish might have more of an impact than you realize. Where a seed is planted, an idea may begin to take root. We never fully realize the impact we have on others until years later, when someone comes up and says, “You know, you really changed my thinking on that issue.”
Finally, I’m still experimenting with the format and content of this series, so I’d like to ask 2 things of this week:
1. I’d love to start posting photos of the amazing Hillary volunteers from across the U.S. in these Volunteering Roundups. If anyone has photos from their volunteering activities that they’d like to share (and have permission to share), KosMail me or let me know in the comments and I’ll let you know where to send them!
2. As we transition to the general, I’d appreciate hearing some thoughts on what sort of resources you would like to see in the weekly Volunteering Roundup.
With that, it’s your turn...how was your week in volunteering? Let us know in the comments below!
Crossposted at HillaryHQ, an independent, progressive blog committed to the electing Hillary Clinton as the next President of the United States. If you want to support this work, consider a donation through GoFundMe.