By Lauren Groetch: VOP Intern

Here at the Charlottesville office, summer interns have been busy with a multi-faceted civic engagement project. We’re going door-to-door, attending community events, and setting up in high-traffic locations to talk to people in our communities about voting and jobs.  We are working to register hundreds of new voters and are sending Senators Webb and Warner photo petitions of community members who want their elected officials to take steps to lower unemployment.  In these photos, people hold signs that express the need for jobs for their community, their family and themselves. The goal of this project is to garner our senators’ support for the Local Jobs for America Act, which would put over one million Americans back to work restoring local infrastructure.

In this difficult economic climate, people are increasingly inwardly focused; politics is often the last thing on the minds of those who are struggling just to keep their families housed and fed.  But when they hear about a bill in Washington that could change their everyday lives, people are excited to make phone calls and take pictures, and they’re encouraging their friends to do the same!