Break-Out Time

Mar 24th, 2007 4:30 PM UTC
By Weldon Kennedy

We just broke up into three groups to get into more detail about grassroots advocacy.

Right now in room 102 we are talking about in district lobbying meetings.

The first step is knowing your member of Congress.  If you don’t know your representative, make sure to find out who it is on the House website.  You might need your entire 9 digit zip code to find out which district you live in.

Now we are talking about the next step: getting in touch with your member’s office and talking about the issues.  Whether or not your member’s political views are in line with your own, you can be an effective poverty advocate as saving lives and ending poverty is in no way a partisan issue. 

The third thing is how to talk about the issues.  Since poverty is such a big issue, there are lots of ways to talk about it with your member of Congress or one of their staffers.  You can approach this as a faith issue, national security, or simply a moral imperative.

You don’t have to do these meetings alone.  Talk to your friends about poverty and they will start to see you as a resource on this issue.  Diane O’Brien told a story about when she was in college she would approach her professors and ask them if she could speak to her class, sometimes as many as 400 people.  The more people you talk to about taking action with ONE, the more people will take action with you.  Soon you’ll have plenty of people asking to go on lobbying trips with you.

No matter what, remember to be persistent and keep talking about the issues.  It will pay off.

TAGS: The ONE Blog