We've all heard that "children are our future," but few organizations have connected that sentiment to democracy building like Generation Citizen. Their CEO Elizabeth Clay Roy shares her passion for education, civics, and the power of "action civics" to build a better democracy in this episode of the How to Win Friends and Save The Republic podcast.
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College athletes are making a difference
Oct 16, 2024
Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
The Team hosted a groundbreaking event on Oct. 8 to round out National Voter Education Week. Over 7,000 people participated, including attendees at 11 watch parties across 34 states where 1,200 pizzas were delivered.
The speakers included college athletes who spoke of the importance of using their platform to inspire others to become civically engaged. They urged fellow athletes to find what they are passionate about and to turn that passion into action.
The incredible lineup featured student athletes interviewing NCAA President Charlie Baker, UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin, Maryland Gov. Wed Moore (D), the Seattle Storm’s Nneka Ogwumike and the headliner, Phoenix Mercury all-star Natasha Cloud.
Their words were an inspiration to thousands of student athletes, coaches, and administrators across the country as they spoke of how they have made an impact on their communities.
The Team’s co-founder Lisa Kay Solomon hosted the event with energetic and inspirational commentary:
"In a time that feels divisive and hard, it’s inspiring to see how student athletes are using their platform, their voice, their vote, their passion and their grit to help others ‘get in the game’ and shape the types of communities we want to be a part of."
Missed the All Star meeting? No problem — watch the full event here.
And here are some valuable resources to help you prepare for this election season.
- The Team’s Voter Guide takes you step by step through the voting process — from registering to vote to making a voting plan to researching your ballot. We know getting ready to vote can be confusing.
- Party to the Polls is hosting epic dance parties all around the country to celebrate early voting. Join for free food, great music, art, dancing and more. Find a party near you and get ready to dance!
- The Team and Headcount are offering the opportunity to check your registration, register to vote or sign up for election alerts and enter for a chance to win the ultimate sports vacation. This means two tickets to any game of your choice, including travel, transportation and $500 for concessions/merch. Enter here.
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Living life in radical amazement
Oct 10, 2024
Daley-Harris is the author of “Reclaiming Our Democracy: Every Citizen’s Guide to Transformational Advocacy” and the founder of RESULTS and Civic Courage. This is part of a series focused on better understanding transformational advocacy: citizens awakening to their power.
At religious services for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, a writing by Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel grabbed my attention:
“As civilization advances, the sense of wonder almost necessarily declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information, but only for a want of appreciation. The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. What we lack is not a will to believe but a will to wonder.”
Of course, Heschel’s concept of wonder goes much deeper than “I wonder how anyone can still be undecided in the presidential election.”
Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr., and after joining King in Selma he came home and said he “felt a sense of holiness” in that march — he “felt his legs were praying.”
I pay particular attention to Heschel because of another quote from his that a friend includes in her email signature:
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“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement … get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
In an interview on “The Hopeful Majority” podcast, BridgeUSA CEO Manu Meel asked me, “Why do you see advocacy as an important part of finding joy in life? Why is advocacy something everybody should do. … What’s the power of advocacy for you?”
Our conversation had focused on transformational advocacy — deep engagement that brings advocates into relationship with legislators and changes their sense of themselves in the process, not the transactional advocacy of online petitions and email form letters. My response spoke to an aspect of Heschel’s “wonder” and his call to “radical amazement.”
I said that the power of advocacy is the power to be a changemaker. Not that you single handedly change the world, but right where you live. With your elected officials, with your newspaper’s letters to the editor and op-eds, you can be a changemaker. We all want our lives to matter, and our lives do matter in our homes with our families, it matters on our block and hopefully in our community, but do we have to stop there? I say no. We can demonstrate that it matters in the nation and in the world.
My answer to the question “Why advocacy?” is because advocacy is a vehicle to create a more perfect union. It is a means, a method, a tool — a gift, really, to making change.
Then Meel said, “You’re making the case for making your life matter outside the confines of your family, your community — [But I often hear people say,] “My life is perfectly fine the way it is. Why should I care about the nation when everything around me is doing just fine. When my needs are being met, why should I care?”
I told him that I didn’t know what touches a specific listener’s heart or the heart of someone who comes up to him when he's on the road, but I talked about the unspeakable grief that I felt when 20 first-graders were murdered in their Sandy Hook classroom. I don’t know what deeply touches the people he meets, but too often something moves us and then we stuff it. Something moves us and we shut it down and say “My life is just fine,” and close ourselves off to making change.
Instead, we can open ourselves up to it and find an organization that can empower us, an organization that delivers transformational advocacy by 1) forming local chapters and building community, 2) training us and 3) encouraging us to have real breakthroughs.
Listen again to Heschel: “As civilization advances, the sense of wonder almost necessarily declines.” Our declining sense of wonder closes us off to being changemakers. “Our goal,” Heschel said, “should be to live life in radical amazement.” A life of “radical amazement” is a life that is open to the hurts of the world, open to our desire to make change and followed by a deep focus, not flitting from issue to issue.
“The beginning of our happiness,” Heschel said, “lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.”
Bring on the wonder.
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She Should Run empowers women beyond Election Day
Oct 09, 2024
Becvar is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and executive director of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
As we gear up for one of the most pivotal elections in history, it’s clear that women are more politically inspired than ever. Following the announcement of Vice President Kamala Harris' candidacy, the percentage of women feeling politically inspired soared from 12 percent to 59 percent, according to a recent survey.
Yet, despite this surge in inspiration, the survey — conducted in June and September by She Should Run and CREDO Mobile — found that an astonishing 78 percent of women are still not considering running for office. This gap between inspiration and action is exactly what She Should Run’s latest initiative aims to address.
She Should Run is launching the “VOTE, AND” campaign to respond to the recent decline in women candidates, and aims to boost women’s political engagement beyond the ballot box. While women are tuning out of toxic political news, we know they continue to show up for their communities and themselves. She Should Run’s goal is to bridge the gap between the two and bring the political to the everyday. The campaign aims to inspire 10,000 women to take the first steps toward political leadership and connect the dots between their everyday actions and political ambitions in the future.
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VOTE, AND is launching with a diverse collection of digital resources to help women prepare for this election season and with an array of partners to connect women’s everyday actions with their political futures. Campaign activations include:
- VOTE, AND Walk To Run: In partnership with City Girls Who Walk DC, on Oct. 13, She Should Run will host a Walk to Run event to engage women in the power of their future.
- VOTE, AND Finish the Fight: Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Suffs will elevate tools from Vote, And with a one-of-a-kind social media content partnership with She Should Run throughout October.
- VOTE, AND Pantsuit Up: In a continuation M.M.LaFleur’s #ReadytoRun partnership, on Oct. 29, M.M.LaFleur Georgetown will host an in-store shopping event benefiting She Should Run to help women feel their best on Election Day and beyond.
- VOTE, AND Lovingkindness: On Oct. 30, She Should Run and Happier will host a joint Instagram Live meditation session led by world-renowned meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg to navigate election season with balanced heartfulness.
“This is a historic election, not only because we have the opportunity to see the first woman, the first Asian American, and only the second Black person to become president, but because of the profound impact it can have on the future of women’s political leadership. It is vital that we capitalize on the energy of this moment to motivate women beyond November,” said She Should Run founder and CEO Erin Loos Cutraro. “With VOTE, AND we can show women that their everyday actions are political, and meet them where they are on the topics and experiences they care about.”
While women are tuning out of toxic political news, we know they continue to show up for their communities and themselves. By combining core actions with education and curating examples of the many unexpected ways to engage women, She Should Run hopes to inspire a new generation of women leaders to take their first steps toward political leadership in the future.
Through digital resources, partnerships, and inspiring events, VOTE, AND brings women together and connects the dots between daily actions and potential political futures. From ballot evaluator tools to themed playlists, they offer engaging ways for women to explore their political potential. Women’s leadership is not just about breaking glass ceilings; it’s about using our collective power to make every community stronger.
With a historic election on the horizon, there’s no better time to show that women’s voices matter not just at the ballot box, but at every level of leadership. Let’s make sure that the energy of this election doesn’t end on Election Day. Let’s vote, and then let’s lead.
For more information, visit She Should Run.
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With a kayak and trash picker, she inspired a community to show up
Oct 03, 2024
Plata is communications manager for Weave: The Social Fabric Project.
The Aspen Institute’s Weave: The Social Fabric Project tackles the problem of broken trust that has left Americans divided, lonely and in social gridlock. Weave connects and invests in grassroots leaders stepping up to weave a new, inclusive social fabric where they live. This is the fourth in an ongoing series telling the stories of community weavers from across the country.
In 2020, Marie Constantin was walking her dog around Capitol Lake in Baton Rouge, a peaceful bit of nature near the Louisiana capitol, when she realized the shoreline was covered in trash. “I stood there and I was almost paralyzed because it was more litter than I’ve ever seen in my life,” she says.
She didn’t stay paralyzed for long. The next day, she grabbed a trash picker and began cleaning the shore. At an age when others retire, the 68-year-old woman kept going back every day, eight to 10 hours a day. “Sometimes I would go on a kayak to pick up litter and look for the outfalls, the place where the trash was flowing from,” says Constantin.
A professional photographer, she began sharing her progress on Facebook.
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Little by little, neighbors started showing up. When a storm hit and thousands of pounds of trash flowed in, undoing much of the work they had accomplished over that year, more folks showed up to help. She estimates that up to 200 people have come out.
“We've picked up 26 tons of litter and four tons of tires,” says Constantin. “Businesses gave their employees time to volunteer. We had federal judges come out, we had little children come out. We had all kinds of people.” In the process, they’ve built friendships and a sense of community.
After cleaning up, a group often hangs out and shares a meal. Constantin’s social media posts capture the spirit. ”There's one photo where we created a human chain and dragged the bags up the hill, and you get a sense of the camaraderie,” she says.
The group noticed much of the litter flowing to the lake was single-use items, like chip bags and drinking cups. They traced those to trash trucks that were spilling small litter into the streets, where it washed into storm drains that led to the lake. They petitioned, marched and contacted the media, forcing the company responsible for trash pickup to spend several million dollars upgrading its truck fleet.
Now, the group is petitioning the city to implement a stormwater management system, which Constantin knows is an uphill battle that might take years. To coordinate these efforts, Constantin founded the Louisiana Stormwater Coalition. Now that people are connected and realize they can create change, anything feels possible. And she says neighbors are starting new projects to strengthen their community.
To see more stories like this, subscribe to Weave’s weekly newsletter.
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