During 2009, Pam Fessler is doing a 4 or 5 part series for NPR's Morning Edition about grassroots participation in the new Obama Administration. She attended the December 4 Center for Community Change forum in Washington, D.C. and heard VOP Chairperson Jay Johnson speak and decided to have VOP be the group to follow for this series. Pam came to the December 13 VOP staff meeting to find out more about the role of community organizers and did some additional interviews.If any of you have questions about VOP's work, I'd love to discuss it in the comments section. Considering the scope and variety of VOP's multi-issue state and local campaigns, my contribution has always been relatively tiny. (But, I did get to pitch VOP's General Assembly legislative agenda to the Henrico NAACP last week.) Community organizing has been a passion of mine long before I ever heard of Barack Obama. It's groups like VOP, working for long term change and slowly building infrastructure, that makes electing a progressive president possible. Well, that's my opinion. Let's see what they say on NPR.
ON MONDAY, JANUARY 12, THE FIRST INSTALLATION OF THIS SERIES WILL BE ON NPR'S MORNING EDITION. IT WILL RUN AT 6:20 A.M. AND 8:20 A.M. ON MOST NPR RADIO STATIONS. IF YOUR NPR STATION DOES NOT FOLLOW THIS SCHEDULE,
IT WILL BE ON THE NPR WEBSITE (AFTER 1 P.M. THE SAME DAY).
Pam plans to spend some time in the next month or two with VOP folks in the Shenandoah Valley and VOP Organizer Larry Yates will be coordinating her interviews there.
VOP is moving forward!
--
Joe Szakos
Executive Director
Virginia Organizing Project
703 Concord Avenue
Charlottesville, VA 22903-5208
434.984.4655 x 222
434.984.2803 fax
szakos@ntelos.net
www.virginia-organizing.org
Sunday, January 11, 2009
VOP on NPR's Morning Edition
I have served on the Virginia Organizing Project's (VOP) State Governing Board since 2001. I'm really excited to share the news that we're getting some press on NPR, the station I listen to every morning before work. Starting Monday, a NPR installment piece about community organizing is going to include VOP. I hope you hear it, cuz it's gonna be good (see the written story here). Here's an email from our executive director:
2 comments:
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I am generally supportive of the VOP, but I think sometimes there's a disconnect between organizational goals and reality. For a rough example, it is great that VOP has spent time to educate Virginia citizens about tax issues, but in reality, the amount of possible actual solutions that gets considered is small and even then few if any ideas get brought before legislators. For VOP to now influence policy at Federal level is hard to fathom- which I think was the point of the NPR piece. That said, as I stated, I am a Green Party member who is supportive.
ReplyDeleteAnon: I'm glad you responded about the tax-code and federal level activism of VOP. If there was one thing about that NPR coverage that wasn't accurate, it's the focus on VOP's participation in national politics. We generally don't do it. We're a grassroots group, working on state and local issues, and that's where we'll continue to focus. However, the Obama opportunity will probably be a great experience for those of our members who participate, and it was darned good press that will likely bring more people into civic engagement. When the dust settles, we're working for long term change in Virginia, period. And issues like health care are simply too big and too important to pass up.
ReplyDeleteAs for the tax code, we set up committees to study issues and come up with potential solutions. Where our members want to know more about the tax-code, we do workshops. It's really important that people start to understand the disproportionate burden that poor people bear as Virginia generates its revenue. Now, getting the attention and sympathy of the General Assembly on that issue is another matter. Hopefully, if you consider the Obama election as a referendum on two divergent federal income tax plans, VA will catch on that we can find our funds in the bank accounts of those who can afford to pay, rather than cutting into regular people's monthly grocery expenses or essential services, like education.