How to canvass to victory!

and making friends with plants (a post from Bea)

gifts from Autumn!

Greetings, Frog Troublers! We hope you had a great week. We send lots of healing love to Grampa and Grandpa and anyone else who needs it. Bea has today’s post, and also encourages you to send it to others, because it’s all about getting out there, getting some steps in (kids call this “getting your energy out”), meeting great people, and (hopefully) saving democracy.

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Yesterday my mom and I had a very busy day. First we had a Plant Pets book event at NC State Library. We shared pickles, pepper jelly, coloring pages by Mamie, and plant cuttings! There were kids, adults, and college students. We decorated small terracotta pots, then propagated mother of thousands, leaf of life, and burrow’s tail succulents into soil. It was so much fun, and we met an awesome college student named Autumn. Look how many plants Autumn has in her dorm room!

After the event Autumn went all the way back to her dorm to get us three different plant cuttings. We have two of them rooting in water, and one had enough roots to plant in soil. Thank you, Autumn, thank you Marian for inviting and hosting us, and thank you everyone who came out!

After that, we went to Rocky Mount to meet our friend Cat and canvass for Democrats. Canvassing is where you go and knock on people’s doors to tell them about a candidate that you support. We did that for James Mercer and Lorenza Wilkins in Nash County, through County to County, a group our friend Cat volunteers with.

I’ve been wanting to canvass lately because I’m really excited about Kamala Harris becoming our first woman president. I watched her debate DT this week and she was great. She was confident and well-prepared, and she kicked DT’s butt.

I wasn’t nervous before we canvassed because I’ve done it before. But if you’re nervous it’s understandable! It’s kind of weird to knock on random doors.

But guess what? The doors aren’t random. You usually get twenty-five or thirty addresses, all people who might like the candidate you’re canvassing for because they are in the same party. Everyone we talked to yesterday was really nice.

Not everyone will be home. That’s okay because you can leave them some postcards.

Sometimes people have questions,. For example, one person didn’t know that early in-person voting is still happening on schedule. That’s understandable because absentee ballots have been delayed. But early voting still starts (in NC) on October 17! NC voters can look up their early voting polling place here.

If you’ve never canvassed before, I have some suggestions:

Wear comfy shoes. It was warm but not hot so Mom, Cat, and I wore sandals. You might have to walk a little bit. It took us two hours to get all our doors, but the apartments were pretty close together.

If you have a cute shirt or button, like my Cat Ladies for Kamala t-shirt, that gets people talking.

Bring water and a snack. A tote bag is a good idea.

It’s a good idea to sign up with friends—you can take turns, or each take a job. For our group, Cat did most of the talking, Mommy tracked our information in Minivan (an app you download on the phone), and I gave people materials.

Finally, my best advice is to plan a treat for after you’re done. We went for boba.

Cat has never had boba tea! Here’s our favorite song about it:

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Thanks for reading, Frog Troublers! Have you been putting up signs, talking to friends, phone banking, or canvassing? We’d love to hear how it’s going!