The Virginia Organizing Project has added two new apprentice organizers to its staff. Harold Folley Jr. joined the VOP staff on January 2 and Richael Faithful came aboard on May 23.

“We are really excited to have two more apprentice organizers of color,” said VOP Chairperson Janice “Jay” Johnson. “We are committed to growing more organizers from Virginia and we are happy to do it while expanding to more parts of the state.”

“I started working at VOP just before the General Assembly convened this year,” Folley said. “I am proud to be part of the efforts to fight for those who are working for $5.15 an hour or to defend low-income individuals that are being targeted by the payday lending companies.”

“I learned more about the General Assembly in the last five months here at VOP than I did in all my civics classes in school!” Folley said.

Folley will be organizing a new VOP chapter in House District 58 and will help to coordinate interns working out of the Charlottesville office this summer.

Folley has lived in Charlottesville all of his life. Prior to coming to VOP, Folley was an organizer for the Public Housing Association of Residents.

Faithful will work out of a new VOP office in Woodbridge, organizing constituent meetings with legislators in key northern Virginia districts. She will also do some research on potential health care campaigns for VOP and continue to work with the Racial Profiling Campaign Strategy Committee.

Faithful is a native of Centreville, Virginia. Her involvement with VOP began her first year at the College of William and Mary through a service-learning partnership with the emerging local chapter. Since, Richael has been an active member of VOP’s Racial Profiling Committee as a resident researcher on data collection systems, and recently, represented the committee in a series of key meetings with Senator Ken Stolle. In Williamsburg, she was a strategy team member of the Inclusionary Housing Campaign, an effort to pass an ordinance requiring new affordable housing in the greater Williamsburg area. Faithful also graduated with the first VOP Leadership Institute class last fall.

Faithful’s work at VOP along with her leadership roles with the campus NAACP chapter and LGBT group, Lambda Alliance, earned her three President’s Aide appointments, the President’s Award for Community Service, Spirit of Service Award and the Ernestine Jackson Award for Cross-Cultural Understanding. She recently graduated from the College of William and Mary with her self-designed degree, “Studies in American Inequality, Social Thought and Political Economy,” and highest honors for her political sociology undergraduate thesis on an anti-affirmative action protest which occurred her first year. She looks forward to her apprenticeship at VOP and continuing her tenure on Equality Virginia’s Board of Directors.

“Over the last three years,” Richael said, “VOP has shaped my values toward change and change-making. I’m beyond excited about joining the professional staff and cannot think of more rewarding work — out of college or frankly, during a lifetime.”

You can contact Folley at (434) 984-4655 x231 or harold@virginia-organizing.org. Faithful can be reached at faithful@virginia-organizing.org or (757) 784-6046.