By Dallas Crawford, JONAH Intern
JONAH held two public events for writing letters to non-voters this spring. While attendance was low, mostly due to a winter storm, spirits were high.
People can often feel disconnected from politics and elections, especially when witnessing a lack of active involvement from the community. For the people I interacted with during the events, there was a feeling of fresh air and hope as we wrote heartfelt and personal letters to strangers.
Many people express such a distaste for all the campaigning texts and political ads in the mail and it felt good to fight against that partisan tidal wave a little. When we look at JONAH’s foundation and the very thing that convinces people to become members and get involved in their community, what we find is shared stories. And that is exactly what we did when writing letters. Each of us wrote our stories and why we vote. There was no shame put on non-voters or discussion around parties or policies, just encouragement.
Not only was there positive energy in the room when writing letters, but I felt like I was doing my part as a community member and going the extra mile to bring the community together and become a part of the important decisions made and the changes that result from those decisions.
I think JONAH will continue to put on these letter-writing events because of the sense of hope that sharing personal stories breeds. That is the biggest takeaway from these events: how powerful hope can be, especially when elections are just around the corner.
There might be many people who look at our letters and stories and throw them in the trash without a second thought, but the possibility that a few might take our stories to heart and vote in the upcoming elections fills me with joy.
Overall our voter engagement team and event attendees wrote 110 letters! This is amazing for our first time doing this endeavor. We intend to ramp this up in the fall and would love your help!
Additionally, our team of 8, plus the people they asked to reach out, acted together like a calling-tree and connected with 789 individuals about voting this spring. That, combined with our letters, 377 facebook engagements, and 1615 individuals who read our emails about voter-related information, JONAH had a cumulative positive impact on the election with 2891 persons touched. We look forward to growing this number!