By Thomas Kelley - Jul 17th, 2008 at 6:18 pm EDT
Obama Headquarters, Atlanta, GA. - They meet every Monday at 7pm. They come from diverse backgrounds and different parts of the country as well as Georgia. They put their careers, family, friends and their lives on hold. They work not for money but for the movement that has compelled them to give up six weeks of their summer. They are Obama Organizing Fellows from team 3 out of Atlanta, GA.A glimpse inside an Obama Organizing Fellows meeting is a segmented view of the campaign as a whole. While their individual stories of who they are are unique, the reasons for why they came are distinctly similar; to be a part of something bigger than themselves. While we do not choose history, history does choose us and these Fellows from team 3 are a clear example of carpe diem.
Each week they meet they go through the agenda that is carefully planned to align with their goals of the week. After a brief welcome and introduction, two selected fellows from the team of twelve share "My Story", a two minute background of why and how they came to the campaign. Compelling moments such as these do not happen on a regular basis in life but they do happen once a week in this Fellows meeting.After sharing the challenges of their choice to give up their lives to affect some change in an adopted community, it is time to get down to business. Discussing strategies to register voters and empowering them with a voice, these fellows also create a volunteer plan. Their goal, to recruit supporters of Senator Obama to help take back their country and build a local grassroots campaign from the bottom up.Like every great family they don't agree on everything. However, what they do agree on is implementing platform meetings on policy, house parties to recruit volunteers, and the need to work hard to register the some 850, 000 people who are not registered to vote in Georgia.Their efforts can best be summed up in the words of one Fellow that spoke towards the end of their meeting. "If we can register as many voters as possible we can turn Georgia Blue and that will go a long way to making sure Barack Obama is the next President of The United States."
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