Last week, Bernie’s first campaign office opened in Ohio… without the campaign.
A group of forward-thinking activists and die hard Bernie Sanders supporters began planning and raising funds in November. They reached out to local legislators and community leaders, formed a steering committee, secured a location and made all the necessary arrangments to have the location open 50 hours per week.
On January 9th, all thier hard work paid off as 200 people showed up to witness the Office Grand Opening. Senator Micheal Skindell and, native Clevelander, Senator and Bernie Sanders Spokesperson Nina Turner gave the keynote remarks.
“While they may have more money” Turner preached to the crowd, from the front step of the office, “We have more people… and that means we have the power!”
Logistically, the office is opening at the perfect time to be able to raise and train the army Sanders will need in the primary. “The focus of the office right now, in the next few weeks, is the early primary states,” Said Steve Holecko, the office’s Volunteer Coordinator… and focus they do. With a bank of a dozen donated computers, anyone can come, get trained and start making calls into those super important primary battleground states.
Already the 10 or so volunteer office staff have trained many to be local group leaders and helped to set up 15 new group meetings in the first week and contacted hundreds of new volunteers to help. Holecko knows this is no small task, “our volunteer base has gotten bigger and bigger since we’ve contacted more people, and right now we have a bank of about 600 [new volunteers] that we’re trying to get through.”
All of this with little to no Sanders campaign support. But the volunteers don’t seem to mind, they know that Bernie is working hard where he needs to… and they look forward to working with him and his staff when they arrive… in the mean time, Ohio is preheating and starting a revolution on its own!
The Bernie Sanders volunteer campaign office is located at 11910 Detroit Avenue in Lakewood. Its hours are from 1 pm to 9 pm on Sunday through Thursday, and from 10 am to 6 pm on Saturday. Learn more at www.neohioforbernie.com Give to keep the office open at www.gofundme.com/...
Special thanks to Kevin at Pressure Life for the quotes and Pic: Read his article here: pressurelife .com/...