Day in the Life of KFTC

Yesterday, Saturday, May 15 was a pretty unremarkable day in most respects.  For us, collectively as Kentuckians For The Commonwealth, there wasn't anything singularly huge on the calendar, but we decided to try to compile quick stories about a lot of little things that happened throughout the day and present them as this - A Day in the Life of KFTC. 

At 7 a.m. KFTC members in northern Kentucky came together outside of Ockerman Middle School in Florence to start setting up tables for the big Relay for Life yard sale.  Alex Searles organized the KFTC table, but eight members participated in all, selling items that they donated to the  cause and passing out information about KFTC.  They also invited those interested to the big NKY KFTC Chapter Formation meeting on Tuesday.  By the end of the event at 4 p.m., they brought in $150 and made a lot of key contacts with new people.  Members also left with KFTC Voter Guides to hand out over the next few days.

At 10 a.m. the KFTC booth at the Butchertown Art Fair in Louisville got rolling.  Many of the candidates for mayor were there and most of them dropped by the KFTC table to say hello.  The event was in a neighborhood where KFTC does a lot of work, so many people at the festival  recognized us, and cheered for KFTC.  It gave a lot of our members who don't volunteer with us every month a chance to drop by and plug into our work.  A few people said they'd been meaning to join KFTC and took membership envelopes or joined on the spot.  Others asked about voting locations and we made lists of people to call back on Monday with that information.   Nine hours later, at 7 p.m., we packed up and headed home. 

At 10:30 a.m. a workshop started at the Pine Mountain Sustainability Symposium on "Steps Towards Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy" the workshop was facilitated by KFTC leaders Carl Shoupe and Roy Silver, among others.  This was just one of many events our members participated in throughout the powerful three-day conference designed to bring together specialists, practitioners, educators, and organizers to share their experiences and learn about model projects throughout southeastern Kentucky.  The symposium included hands-on trainings, workshops, woodland hikes, and garden tours with local and regional experts working on food, energy, and forest issues.

At noon, Tyler Birdwhistell and Bethany Baxter met in downtown Georgetown to go door-to-door in the Scroggin Park Housing Authority neighborhood - passing out KFTC Voter Guides and letting people know where their voting location is.   After about two hours, they had covered half of the neighborhood, which was enough for a couple of us to come back the next day and finish it up in an hour and a half. 

"I ran into one woman who is a former felon - so she'd had her right to vote taken away from her when she was much younger.  She told me the she worked for years to get her right to vote back and that she almost gave up a few times.  But she got them back during the Patton administration and has voted ever since." - Tyler Birdwhistell

At 3 p.m. a small group of KFTC folks visited the Peace and Global Citizenship Fair at Bluegrass Community Technical College in Lexington.  It was a great event organized by BCTC’s Students for Peace and Earth Justice.  For our part, we canvassed the crowd with a big stack of KFTC Voter Guides, asking people to cast an informed vote on Tuesday.  Kudos to BCTC’s Students for Peace and Earth Justice for putting together a great event that is getting a bit bigger every year. 

At 4 p.m. the Madison County KFTC members kicked off their Spring Friendraiser, with more than 70 people enjoying a potluck, cornhole and games, a great silent auction, live music by Mudpi, a short program about the awesome work of KFTC, and apparently a game that involved more than a little rolling around in the mud.  Members brought in $700 in donations and had a lot of fun before winds picked up and a hailstorm heralded an early end to the event.  We'll likely have a separate blog entry on this exciting event in the next few days, so stay tuned.  

In addition to all of that, members ran voter mobilization phone banks throughout the day in Bowling Green, Louisville, and in at-large (non-chapter) areas of the state, to name a few places, and members passed out KFTC Voter Guides or handbills about the election at events and in their neighborhoods throughout the commonwealth.  

No doubt, our 6,000+ members across the state accomplished an awful lot in the name of social justice on Saturday that will never make it to this blog - conversations with neighbors, writing letters to elected officials, etc.

It's a lot of little things, but this was just one day.  And day after day in community after community, it adds up.  So keep at it folks. 

What can we do tomorrow?