Add some activism to my barbecue

July 3, 2022 3:03 PM

I want to grill for the Fourth tomorrow-and invite some family and friends to drop by. We do this frequently-but wow, hard to celebrate America for me and most my friends this year-especially after 30 or so years of pro choice activism. I’d love to have something folks can do for the cause while we are eating ribs and drinking all the drinks. We live in Oregon-so not sure best bang for our buck is writing to our senators and reps. Other campaigns we can engage in? Postcards? Other ideas?
posted by purenitrous to Law & Government (6 answers total)

Best answer: Postcards to swing states
Indigenous Women Rising
The Afiya Center
ineedana.com
posted by Mizu at 3:29 PM on July 3, 2022 [3 favorites]

What a great idea! You may want to check out Vote Forward—they have many campaigns to choose from, including sending letters to democratic leaning Oregon voters to vote in the midterms. But you can choose any state to send letters to (unlike if you choose to call congresspeople) Here is their guide to hosting a letter writing party. Also it may be most useful to have you and your guests register before the party, since it could take a bit for them to get their Vote Forward account.
posted by oxisos at 3:31 PM on July 3, 2022 [4 favorites]

Even better, you don't need all your guests to register for Vote Forward, you can just print the letters yourself and provide envelopes. (They don't need to be sent until October, so you have time to get stamps.) Definitely what I will be doing tomorrow.... and all summer.
posted by Threeve at 5:50 PM on July 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

If you've used the services of a clinic in a state where they are still operating, leave a positive review for them on Google. The get lots of fake negative reviews that pull down their ratings.

You can promote truthful reviews about fake clinics aka crisis pregnancy centers. Info here. You can also report fake clinics in your area if they are not already on the map.
posted by kimdog at 7:50 PM on July 3, 2022 [1 favorite]

I've been writing Postcards to Voters since the run up to the 2020 election. It's mostly encouraging voters to sign up for Vote by Mail (often Florida) but there have been some special and regular election candidate campaigning. You choose as few as 4 and up to 50 postcards at a time.
posted by olopua at 8:43 PM on July 3, 2022 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: You all are amazing! I didn’t have time to get letter writing together so asked folks to consider donating to the groups Mizu mentioned above-and I’ll get letter writing pulled together for the summer.
posted by purenitrous at 7:58 PM on July 7, 2022