Hey everyone! Today’s volunteer roundup, like the one a couple of weeks ago 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 how to help without phone banking or canvassing!
The Primary
At last, the end is near! Only a week til Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, then a few days later, California, New, Jersey, New Mexico, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota go to the polls, thereby ending this $%!@ing primary for good (ok I know D.C. still has to vote on June 14, but it will effectively be over after June 7 since there won’t be enough delegates left to change things). Last Tuesday felt quite empty without results to watch, so I guess this Tuesday I will make myself feel better by phone banking California. You all should join me! Anyway, the campaign is largely focusing on California and New Jersey now, which by far are the biggest delegate prizes left, and Hillary is favored in both.
Besides the official events page on the Hillary website, there are a number of Facebook resources for California.
Similarly, for New Jersey, there is New Jersey for Hillary. Keep an eye on these pages for grassroots volunteer opportunities. (And check out brn2bwild’s last few posts for some on-the-ground reporting from California, including last Sunday’s open thread—thanks for your work on the ground out there!).
As for North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico, 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. 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 any of the June 7 states, by all means, make calls from home. In fact, grab a few friends and make a party out of it. The more the merrier! Right now, you can make calls into California and New Jersey though the website.
**Volunteer tip of the week: When you go out canvassing, ALWAYS write down (and keep with you) the phone number(s) of your driver and/or one of the field organizers back in the office. If your cell phone dies or you drop it in a creek or something, this is your backup way of reaching them. When you find your next nice, enthusiastic Hillary supporter, ask politely if you can use their phone (they will in all likelihood say yes), and let your driver/organizer know what’s up.**
The General
Sign ups are underway to volunteer in the following states. Help register voters and help Team Blue win up and down ballot:
Help! I want to volunteer, but I hate phone banking/canvassing! What should I do?
Canvassing and phone banking are important for GOTV, but there’s so much more you can do to help out with the ground campaign. Some other ideas for you:
- If you are into social media outreach, Tweet for Hillary!
- Love cooking and/or baking? Make some cookies/sandwiches/kale chips 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 and it will save the campaign money.
- Have an “elevator speech” ready to share with friends, family, and strangers, as Diana in NoVa suggested in How to Help Hillary without Canvassing or Phone Banking.
- Help with laundry and groceries! One of my friends had a fascinating idea when we were talking the other day: Because my group of volunteers spends so many weekends traveling in addition to holding full-time jobs during the week, time is really tight for doing basic things like laundry and grocery shopping. She thought it would be great to get us gift cards for laundry/grocery delivery services. Alternately if you don’t mind doing the work yourself, you can let your local Hillary volunteers know that you are available to help them out on these fronts. Trust me: either way, it would be a HUGE help to volunteers who are spending many of their non-work hours on the campaign and would be an amazing way to help out if you don’t have the time or are unable to go out knocking on doors yourself.
Finally, 2 things for the crowd as we head into the general:
1. I’d love to post 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 include in this series (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. What sort of resources you would like to see in the weekly Volunteering Roundup?
So, June 7 volunteers...how’s it going in your state? Anyone working yet for the general election states? 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.