…This Week In Charlotte…

This week in Charlotte…

We’ve had quite a busy week, but a fairly exciting one as well. It seems as if this week has passed within a blink of an eye, yet we have already gained many valuable contacts and experiences. To begin with, our first day started with a speaking engagement at 8:30 AM. We arrived at a community center to a meeting called the Tuesday Morning Breakfast. This is a group of retired government officials who gather to learn about new issues they can use their experiences to leverage. We spoke to the members about the Respect Our Vote campaign and explained the implications if such bills were to be passed. We were received by an eager and friendly audience. They asked lots of detailed question and even came to congratulate us after the meeting had come to a close. We were both caught up with a bit of jitters, as this was our very first hour on the job and we were to present. Yet, when we took our place at the front of the room, a sense of comfort resided within us and we had a wonderful time speaking to the group. Check us out on tr website (http://www.tueforumclt.org/)!!The rest of our day consisted of visiting the office, figure out the details of our summer plans and listing supplies that were needed.

Day Two, started at the office. This day we created a Twitter account to make sure that we are able to keep in contact with the Winston-Salem and Greenville groups. (@dnCharlotteteam) We completed the first draft of our letters to the editor and organized how we were to conduct our first phone bank that night. Later that afternoon, we went downtown to attend a Press Conference for the County Commission Budget Hearing. The room was buzzing with people from several different advocacy groups that were there to observe how the new budget would affect them. We suddenly had to leave so that we could begin our 1st phone canvassing assignment scheduled for that night. We had the privilege of contacting 70 individuals to remind them about the Democracy Charlotte meeting taking place the following day, Thursday, June 2.

On day three, we arrived at the office and were greeted with an array of tasks that were to be completed. We began by arranging 1000 fliers for Organizing for America and another 500 for Advocate Patricia Burns. We then began to contact theaters to find the venue for the one-stop tour film showing in Charlotte. We contacted several theaters and were able to narrow down prospective places. We then had the task of finding organizations that would want us to host speaking engagements. We found a couple possibilities that included some local scout groups as well as some youth organizations. The time for our next event, the Democracy Charlotte meeting had arrived, thus we headed to Amalie’s to get prepared. We had a turnout of 21 people which is a little more than we were expecting. Among the topics covered were redistricting, bills currently in the electorate, and church bulletins. The meeting began at 6pm and lasted approximately two hours. The group showed a lot of enthusiasm towards the agenda and ideas. All-in-all, the meeting was a great success!!

Today is day four and we have finished our last draft of the letters to the editor, continued to work on finding one-on-ones and speaking engagements. We have also finished our weekly reports and are currently finalizing our one-stop-tour plans for Ashville. We are so excited about all that we have planned next week.

…Tune in next week for our visit to the department of Homeland Security for voter registration and a special television appearance from yours truly 🙂

Joyce Lutu and Maiysa Mesbah