Remember Andy? Throughout the summer, we brought you stories from some of the Obama Organizing Fellows, volunteer organizers who spent six weeks working in states across the country in conjunction with grassroots leaders and campaign staff to help build the foundation of our general election campaign.
Many of the Fellows, Andy among them, went on to become field organizers with the campaign. We've asked a few of them to pick up where we last left them, and share their stories of their time on the campaign. Andy's story is below:
I left Detroit, Michigan to move to Columbus, Ohio last June to be an Organizing Fellow with the campaign. Saying goodbye to friends and family members was tough. In spite of the difficulty, I knew their memories would keep me strong.There was no memory of a person that was stronger in my mind than that of my stepfather. He was an honest man. He treated my brother and I like we were his own children. My mother and him always looked out for each other. He taught me to always work hard, even when times were tough.He was an electrician for almost forty years of his life. Unfortunately he developed lung cancer from the asbestos he was exposed to on the job. He had to be hospitalized in November of last year because his health was deteriorating rapidly.We gathered around his bed as a family one last time just before Thanksgiving. The room was absolutely silent except for the whirring noise of the machines. In this silence I thought about how thankful I was for all the times that we had shared. I was thankful for the way we took care of each other.I just wish the health care companies had taken care of my stepfather. It seemed like every day we had to argue with them about coverage for the treatments that he needed to be comfortable and hopefully recover. I will never know if more preventative care and a better plan would have made a difference. But I will always wonder if it could have.I can't change what happened to my stepfather, or the millions of other Americans who have had a similar a story to his. But I know that we need fundamental changes in our policies to prevent this from happening to future generations.When I arrived in Columbus I met hundreds of other Fellows. They may have been different ages and from all across the country, but they all came for change. As Fellows we worked with volunteers in the community to organize voter registration. The days were long, but the payoff was worth it. Together we brought an historic number of new voters into the political process. The Fellows and the volunteers in these early months built the foundation of our campaign. I was sad to see many of them go at the end of July. But I was also inspired by what we had done and what we had built together.I stayed on as a field organizer in Columbus along with several other Fellows. We had some new faces join our team as field organizers as well. Our team culture grew immediately. Even though we worked in different parts of the state we knew that we would have to work together to win Ohio.On that solid foundation we set out to build a leadership structure unlike any other campaign in history. The campaign recognized the power of community, and we worked with local leaders to develop a team in every neighborhood across the state. These teams were unprecedented. They recruited their own volunteers and ran their own canvasses and phonebanks every week. Because of them, we were able to contact an enormous number of voters in Ohio and persuade them to vote for change.My team leaders were amazing. They worked so many hours because they knew that the future of their children, their community, and their country depended on it.About a month before Election Day we started preparing for our final sprint to the finish line. We had to mobilize our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort. At this point people were stepping up their effort and working non-stop. It culminated in the final week with canvasses and phonebanks all day, every day.On November 4th we got up at 4 am. There was not a minute to waste. Teams across every neighborhood in Ohio opened up their staging locations and prepared for the work ahead. I am and always will be proud of how people in their community came together to work for a common purpose.When all of the polling locations closed, I got nervous. Doubt ran through my mind. There was a sinking feeling in my gut. It wasn't that I thought we didn't work as hard as we could. It was more that there was no more work to do. It was out of our hands at this point. I headed back to headquarters in my car.I didn't listen to the radio on the way back to the office. I couldn't bear it. Instead I sat listening to the whirring sound of my car engine. I thought about my stepfather. I knew the work we did would have made him proud.When I walked into the office there was a hair-raising energy in the air. Everyone was running from room to room excitedly, explaining that we had just won Ohio. Shortly after Barack Obama won the presidency. A roar ran through the office. A change ran through the country.Now that I have come back home I get a new positive energy from everyone I meet. There may be enormous challenges ahead, but we are ready as a nation to deal with them and make our country greater.
I left Detroit, Michigan to move to Columbus, Ohio last June to be an Organizing Fellow with the campaign. Saying goodbye to friends and family members was tough. In spite of the difficulty, I knew their memories would keep me strong.
There was no memory of a person that was stronger in my mind than that of my stepfather. He was an honest man. He treated my brother and I like we were his own children. My mother and him always looked out for each other. He taught me to always work hard, even when times were tough.
He was an electrician for almost forty years of his life. Unfortunately he developed lung cancer from the asbestos he was exposed to on the job. He had to be hospitalized in November of last year because his health was deteriorating rapidly.
We gathered around his bed as a family one last time just before Thanksgiving. The room was absolutely silent except for the whirring noise of the machines. In this silence I thought about how thankful I was for all the times that we had shared. I was thankful for the way we took care of each other.
I just wish the health care companies had taken care of my stepfather. It seemed like every day we had to argue with them about coverage for the treatments that he needed to be comfortable and hopefully recover. I will never know if more preventative care and a better plan would have made a difference. But I will always wonder if it could have.
I can't change what happened to my stepfather, or the millions of other Americans who have had a similar a story to his. But I know that we need fundamental changes in our policies to prevent this from happening to future generations.
When I arrived in Columbus I met hundreds of other Fellows. They may have been different ages and from all across the country, but they all came for change. As Fellows we worked with volunteers in the community to organize voter registration. The days were long, but the payoff was worth it. Together we brought an historic number of new voters into the political process. The Fellows and the volunteers in these early months built the foundation of our campaign. I was sad to see many of them go at the end of July. But I was also inspired by what we had done and what we had built together.
I stayed on as a field organizer in Columbus along with several other Fellows. We had some new faces join our team as field organizers as well. Our team culture grew immediately. Even though we worked in different parts of the state we knew that we would have to work together to win Ohio.
On that solid foundation we set out to build a leadership structure unlike any other campaign in history. The campaign recognized the power of community, and we worked with local leaders to develop a team in every neighborhood across the state. These teams were unprecedented. They recruited their own volunteers and ran their own canvasses and phonebanks every week. Because of them, we were able to contact an enormous number of voters in Ohio and persuade them to vote for change.
My team leaders were amazing. They worked so many hours because they knew that the future of their children, their community, and their country depended on it.
About a month before Election Day we started preparing for our final sprint to the finish line. We had to mobilize our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) effort. At this point people were stepping up their effort and working non-stop. It culminated in the final week with canvasses and phonebanks all day, every day.
On November 4th we got up at 4 am. There was not a minute to waste. Teams across every neighborhood in Ohio opened up their staging locations and prepared for the work ahead.
I am and always will be proud of how people in their community came together to work for a common purpose.
When all of the polling locations closed, I got nervous. Doubt ran through my mind. There was a sinking feeling in my gut. It wasn't that I thought we didn't work as hard as we could. It was more that there was no more work to do. It was out of our hands at this point. I headed back to headquarters in my car.
I didn't listen to the radio on the way back to the office. I couldn't bear it. Instead I sat listening to the whirring sound of my car engine. I thought about my stepfather. I knew the work we did would have made him proud.
When I walked into the office there was a hair-raising energy in the air. Everyone was running from room to room excitedly, explaining that we had just won Ohio. Shortly after Barack Obama won the presidency. A roar ran through the office. A change ran through the country.
Now that I have come back home I get a new positive energy from everyone I meet. There may be enormous challenges ahead, but we are ready as a nation to deal with them and make our country greater.
You can read the rest of Andy's stories about his time spent as an Organizing Fellow here. Over the next few days we'll be catching up with a number of the Fellows. If you a memorable story from your experience on the campaign you'd like to share, you can submit it online or in the comments below.
Comments are closed for this post.
