VOP Newsfeed

4/11/10 Why do I pay only $474 in Virginia income tax?

4/7/10 Grassroots Response to Health Care Passage

4/3/2010 Grassroots group eyes reform

3/30/10 Augusta Free Press audio show on VOP's state budget proposals

3/15/10 New Yorker audio slides on Martinsville, site of VOP's newest office

1/22/10 VOP on NPR's Morning Edition

11/25/09 Charges dropped against Joe Szakos, the Anthem Blue Cross customer arrested for questioning rate increases

Great New Books on Organizing:

“This summer, VOP showed up in hundreds of places we have never been before, from country roads in Scott County to African-American communities in Hampton Roads, from Latino neighborhoods in Northern Virginia to working-class neighborhoods in Danville. We showed up with non-partisan voter guides, flyers about health care, and a real Virginia message,” said Jay Johnson, chairperson of the Virginia Organizing Project State Governing Board.

“The message carried by our volunteer canvassers, our staff, and our 50 summer interns was truly a Commonwealth message. We each may have our own unique problems, but the solutions come from working together and all taking responsibility for each other,” Johnson said.

Johnson was describing VOP’s Civic Engagement Project (CEP). Over 10 weeks last summer, VOP knocked on more than 130,000 doors. They asked everyone who answered what issues they personally considered important, beginning a dialogue about the common good.

In this issue of virginia.organizing, you will find a few of the stories from those front-door discussions. But no single article — and no single individual — can grasp all the results of this massive effort. How many people, feeling alone and hopeless, were inspired to get involved again? Hundreds of people agreed at the door to be part of VOP efforts, especially on our health care campaign.

At one door in the Shenandoah Valley, a local official answered at his own front door. He looked over the Voter Guide 2008, with its information on voting rights and its issue statements from a wide variety of groups. “I don’t agree with this organization,” he told the intern. She had already told him we had gone door-to-door all over his town, asking people’s opinions at each door. He turned to her again, and asked, “What are the people saying?”

Too often, our elected officials think they can ignore the answer to that question. But as we build connections between movements and causes, and as the people talk to each other more, “what the people are saying” about our shared issues and concerns will matter more and more each day.