Kitchen Table Activism

Background: Kitchen Table Activism (KTA) is a monthly project of the Rural Organizing Project. Often building on quarterly themes, short actions are described in each KTA. The theory is that basic steps and tasks can lead to powerful collective results as small groups of people gather to complete the same action throughout the state of Oregon.

ROP works to keep the basic tasks easily achievable so that groups with other projects or groups with limited immediate energy can still manage to complete the KTA each month.

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January 2005 Activity

Howdy, Neighbor!

Why This Activity?

In the months leading up to November 2nd progressives throughout Oregon did incredible work. You recruited volunteers, met your neighbors, surveyed voters, and got out the progressive vote. We collectively put in thousands of hours to make this happen. And we met a lot of new people along the way. Now that Election Day has passed, our electoral campaign work is temporarily at rest. But, to create a grassroots electoral machine with heart, we need to keep in touch with the people we met in 2004. Our movement will only grow if we make it grow. Volunteers that stepped up for the first time in their lives, people we surveyed who affirmed our values for a just society that provides and respects all - these are the kind of people we don’t want to disappear after all the energy that went into finding and meeting them. The January KTA is to shore up those lists of volunteers and voters, in preparation for 2005 and beyond!

What Is This Activity?

Take those long, incomplete lists of names and try to fill in the blanks. If you don’t yet have a list of volunteers’ names or a list of people surveyed, then the first step is to try to find it, or, if you need to, re-create it. Once we have a list of names, we need to fill in the holes with addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. This month’s activity is to complete your list of community supporters by first compiling your list by thinking through all the possible people who ought to be included in this list and then sitting in front of a phone book and completing those lists. Remember, in building a broad-based, community-supported movement for change, names are gold. And names with full contact information are priceless!

Steps To Complete The Activity

1. Locate the relevant lists for your Election 2004 work. They can include volunteers’ names for your human dignity group, various campaigns and other electoral groups, and the people you surveyed. If you can’t find the list, call up as many people that you can think of who were involved, and get them to think through with you who they met during their election work, what neighbors had lawn signs, and any others folks they think ought to be included.
2. Once you have the various lists together, create one centralized list on your computer. ROP has sample databases that we can provide and you can fill in.
3. Examine those lists and find out what information is missing. For those groups that did surveying, look through your list of hot (1) and warm (2) contacts to find who doesn’t have complete contact information.
4. Find a volunteer (or a few) who will go through the phone book and research online to find the full contact information for these folks.
5. Feel good that you have built the database of progressives in your community! You are now ready to face the 2005 legislative session and continue forward the development of a grassroots electoral machine with heart in rural Oregon!