Greater Pinellas

Data Seminar

On March 29th I went to a Data Seminar at the OFA headquarters. It was fairly useful, although I had been using the database for a while, so there wasn't too much they said that was new to me.  Regardless, a review is always helpful.  Afterwards I was interviewed by the Guardian.   I can't wait to see what they wrote!
The office looked beautiful as always.  They always do such a good job making the room look photogenic.

Joe Biden is in town!

On March 7th Vice President Joe Biden came to the Vinoy in downtown St. Pete to speak to a small group of people who had donated hundreds of dollars to be there. Lucky for us, Organizing for America got all of the best volunteers hooked up with some tickets! I invited my best team members and we made our way to the event.  I was lucky enough to get to stand in front of the rope, so I was literally standing right in front of the Vice President for the whole speech.  Stupidly I let my phone die so I was unable to take pictures, but I have some good ones of my favorite team members!

Jessica Petterson, Happy Hour Canvassing Captain

                                                     Karina Guzzman, Data Captain

Barack the Vote

I planned for this event more than I've ever had to plan before.  We had thought of having the event at Bohemia Cafe and bringing in live music, but turns out we were wrong.  I quickly rescheduled the event to Midtown Sundries, where we booked out a whole room and had a beautifully successful event!  About 30 people showed up and we got 11 new volunteers to sign up!  I bought some wings and pitchers of beer, and before I knew it there were people coming from all over the restaurant to check us out.  I was able to have campaign conversations with 3 people that were not even informed that the event was going to be there.  I tried to take some pictures, but was so busy greeting people, showing them where to go, registering them to vote, getting them free bumper stickers on barackobama.com and signing them up to be volunteers for Organize for America.  Here are a few pics that other people were able to take for me.  In the future, I will appoint a photographer so that I do not have to worry about doing that as well.

 Asia, the organizing fellow from St. Pete College was able to get us some awesome sunglasses! She's amazing.

Core Team members at work!

Janeen is a great data entry captain and voter reg captain.  She is helping me set up here.  Aren't the ribbons on the placards awesome?!

Greater Together Youth Summit

The University of Florida held an event called the Greater Together Youth Summit on 02/29/2012.
 I decided that the USFSP OFA team should host a viewing event so that we could get an idea of what a Youth Summit should look like at our school.  We got a room reserved in Harbor Hall and a few of my team's Core Team Members (CTM) came to support the president and watch the online streaming of the event at UF. We had some difficulties viewing the summit on the projector, so we just decorated the room, and huddled around the laptop.  Improvise, Adapt, Overcome!

David Axelrod gave a moving speech about his campaign with Obama and the accomplishments he has achieved for young Americans already.  He mentioned his goals to make college more affordable and life after college a little less difficult.  It was good to see how the Youth Summit worked at the University of Florida.  We have already begun planning to do something similar at USF.  We are all very excited!

OFA: Fist Pumping for Obama

Getting Started

After carefully listening to the republican representatives pitch their candidates, I've decided that I still love Obama and would be honored to campaign for his candidacy.  I was an Obama supporter in 2008 and during the most epic moments of history, as Obama won the election, I was in Dakar, Senegal.  I was surrounded by Africans as they all cheered and told me about how they've regained hope in America and the world.  When traveling to an underdeveloped country, it is nice to be loved by the locals.  Traveling abroad with Bush as my president was scary at times.  I believe in Obama's ability to make serious changes in his final term in the White House. I am excited to meet with my supervisor, Burnadette on Friday to interview for the fellowship and begin making calls.