Volunteer Work
I volunteered last night and this morning with the No On Prop 8 campaign.
I went in yesterday to do phonebanking, but I got cold feet (or maybe cold vocal cords?) and asked them to put me on data entry instead. So I helped clean up the call lists, removing wrong numbers etc.
This morning though, I got to go to the Hollywood Farmer's Market and do in-person volunteer recruiting, which was fantastic.
The thing about the phonebanking is that I wasn't really comfortable having to use a script, and while they provide you with a script for in-person recruitment, you're not supposed to be working directly from it, so much as taking it as a rough guide.
I was pretty excited that I got 7 people to sign up to come in as volunteers, out of the maybe 60 people I talked to or tried talking to.
Getting 7 people to commit may not seem like a lot, but it really is difficult to get folks to even talk to you in the first place, even when (or, I guess, especially when) they are already on board with defeating Prop 8.
I found that the best way to get people to talk to me was to mention that the yes on 8 campaign is outspending the no on 8 campaign 3 to 2, that recent polls are looking like prop 8 might pass, and that there's only 15 days left until the election to reach the undecided voters (and given the margin of error on the polls, it's the undecided voters who are going to determine the outcome).
This was my first time doing volunteer work (at least, as far as I remember), and I'm glad I've gotten involved. I'm going back on Tuesday to do more data entry, and I'm planning to do more volunteer recruitment next weekend as well.
I went in yesterday to do phonebanking, but I got cold feet (or maybe cold vocal cords?) and asked them to put me on data entry instead. So I helped clean up the call lists, removing wrong numbers etc.
This morning though, I got to go to the Hollywood Farmer's Market and do in-person volunteer recruiting, which was fantastic.
The thing about the phonebanking is that I wasn't really comfortable having to use a script, and while they provide you with a script for in-person recruitment, you're not supposed to be working directly from it, so much as taking it as a rough guide.
I was pretty excited that I got 7 people to sign up to come in as volunteers, out of the maybe 60 people I talked to or tried talking to.
Getting 7 people to commit may not seem like a lot, but it really is difficult to get folks to even talk to you in the first place, even when (or, I guess, especially when) they are already on board with defeating Prop 8.
I found that the best way to get people to talk to me was to mention that the yes on 8 campaign is outspending the no on 8 campaign 3 to 2, that recent polls are looking like prop 8 might pass, and that there's only 15 days left until the election to reach the undecided voters (and given the margin of error on the polls, it's the undecided voters who are going to determine the outcome).
This was my first time doing volunteer work (at least, as far as I remember), and I'm glad I've gotten involved. I'm going back on Tuesday to do more data entry, and I'm planning to do more volunteer recruitment next weekend as well.