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.

This Month’s KTA

KTA archive

Other ROP activities

ROP Home

May 2004 Activity

Adopt a Precinct!

Why This Activity?

We all remember those poignant photos of malnourished babies needing adoption by charitably minded US citizens – for the price of one cup of coffee a day, you could save this child. And then you got little photos and updates as the child moved from the brink of starvation to a mere constant victim of US imperialism abroad.

This election year calls upon those of us that care about children in poverty throughout the world to “adopt a precinct” in our own backyard. A precinct is a political neighborhood of voters defined by each county. Precincts range in size from a dozen voters in Oregon’s smallest communities to a maximum of 5,000 registered voters. By building long-term relationships through voter-to-voter contacts, we can build the analysis and motivation of the 4th branch of government to reign in imperialism and enact full democracy in this country. This year is a crucial time when our own communities need us to take action and commit to having voter-to-voter conversations with our neighbors in a local precinct between now and the November election!

The worksheet link below gives you and your peers a tool to select a precinct that matches your political goals and allows you to make a systematic stab at conversation with fellow voters. The tool is designed to be semi-self-explanatory but fear not, the May 15th Rural Caucus and Strategy Session will allow personalized attention as human dignity groups across the state complete their forms.

Download the worksheet as a Word document.

Download the worksheet as a .pdf file.

What Is This Activity?

The May 2004 KTA asks us to commit some of our Election 2004 focus to doing work in a strategically selected precinct. There is only one way that we can truly change the course of the vote – talking to our neighbors. The attached worksheet assists us to choose the best target area for our objectives.

There are several factors that you will want to consider when choosing which areas your voter contact and Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts will focus on, including:

  1. Geography – what areas you want to work in. Examples include: specific towns, sections of the county, high or low density areas, etc.
  2. Demographic – which voters you would like to target. Examples include: women, specific age group, income status, etc.
  3. Voting history – choose an area based on its voting results in previous elections.

Traditionally when running a campaign, organizers chose their areas to target based on previous elections. This requires acquiring voter results from the county clerk’s office and assessing your results. If you want to do this contact the ROP and we can give you the basics on HOW to do a successful analysis.

Steps To Complete The Activity

  1. Download the planning form in either
  2. Call together a group to look at the planning form.
  3. Make a list of questions – if you have not done prior precinct work, this form asks us to think with new language and concepts, so you may find that you and your group have quite a few questions.
  4. Determine if you need a team to attend the Caucus to get trained in this new information. Who will be going and have they registered yet with ROP?

Register for the Rural Caucus & Strategy Session

ROP needs the names of your communities’ team attending the annual Rural Caucus and Strategy Session on Saturday, May 15th in Oregon City. Visit for a registration form. Or call the ROP office.

Previous KTAs are now located in the KTA Archive.

Questions? Contact ROP at P.O. Box 1350 * Scappoose, OR 97056
503 543-8417 or via e-mail at cara@rop.org

Return to ROP Home