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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October 2005 Activity

Rebuild America: The Gulf Coast, The Country, Our Community

Why This Activity?

An important ingredient to effective communication is starting hard conversations from a place of agreement. The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has provided us with a good starting place. Everyone agrees that they did not want to be “rescued” to the New Orleans Superdome or to believe that people could be reduced to such conditions in our country (sic.) Government did not have the leadership, capacity or will to meet the needs of this country amid a catastrophe. The implications are scary for all of our communities. This creates an opening for progressives to talk about the critical role strong infrastructure has had (from functional roads to potable water to schools) in moving this country to a superpower status. And now our very status as a “developed” nation is threatened by a neo-conservative agenda that degrades the notion of government as for the people.

We ask each leadership circle to consider how your human dignity group might make use of the attached petition as a tool that uses consensus (Rebuild America) to advance a platform for this country.

What Is This Activity?

The October Kitchen Table Action asks that you set a goal to collect names on the enclosed petition to Rebuild America. You can use the completed forms in a signature advertisement in your local paper, to deliver completed petitions to politicians at upcoming town halls, or to bring them to existing bodies to show support as you ask them to pass a similar Rebuild America Resolution. The signature gathering is conversation tool to engage your current volunteers in finding new supporters that can then be added to your database and invited to future peace vigils and other local work.

Steps To Complete The Activity

1. Review the Rebuild America petition.
2. Decide how your group will collect signatures. Then photocopy (or just print out from ROP web page) the petitions and sign on volunteers to circulate. Each form has space for 10 signatures.
3. Develop a plan on how you will use the petition: ideas include creating a signature ad, delivering copies to elected officials, use during a town hall or turn into a resolution for local bodies to adopt.
4. Make sure to get the contact information of everyone who signed the petition into your group’s database. Develop a plan to get these folks into your groupís on-going communication loop.
5. Consider dividing the list of those folks who signed the petition among volunteers to make “Welcome Wagon” calls. Call up those who signed on, share more information about your local human dignity group, and invite them to your next event.
6. Share back with the ROP how signature gathering went and what ways you used the petition.

Heads Up: Do you know folks desperate to be in a small thinking circle that develops analysis and strategy? ROP has copies of Bill Moyer’s Doing Democracy for sale at reduced rates — this guide is a great backdrop to talking through strategies. (And then share your great conclusions with the ROP board!) To order copies contact marcy@rop.org. We also have copies of Don’t Think of an Elephant and The Stranger Next Door.

Previous KTAs are now located in the KTA Archive.