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We Want Your Stories
by Rachel Barber and Carolyn Sherman
April 13, 2005

You are invited to participate in an ACT story collection project about Campaign 2004 -- the events, large or small, that you consider memorable.

Some of the Columbus (Ohio) volunteers were talking on Election Day morning about the importance of our experiences. We decided then that documenting the stories of the campaign would provide an important legacy for ACT's work here.

We’ve started compiling hundreds of first-personal accounts to create a permanent record of the human side of the 2004 election, as told by the people who were actually out there, walking the precincts, making the phone calls, connecting with the voters. This is going to be a "people's history" of ACT, and, even more significantly, of the most massive volunteer effort in political history. Our hope is that your accounts and insights will also help promote meaningful election reform across the country.

Your story is a piece of American history and we intend to capture it for everyone to read and share. If you'd like to be part of this effort, please email your stories to Rachel Barber, wallpaperproject@hotmail.com by April 22.

Consider the following as prompts. You need not limit yourself to these questions:

-- Why did you decide to work with ACT (as opposed to sitting out the election or working with other organizations)?

-- How do you define a "progressive" and what does being such a person mean to you? How did you arrive at this place?

-- Describe in detail the most inspiring experience associated with your work for ACT.

-- Describe in detail the most frustrating experience associated with your work for ACT.

-- What gives you the most hope about the American election process?

-- What gives you the most reason to doubt the American election process?

-- What one story specific to your work with ACT on Election Day is most memorable and why?

We would like to include the following information for the database as well (complete any and all with which you feel comfortable):

• Name
• City in which you volunteered with ACT
• Age
• Place of Residence
• Occupation
• Telephone number (not for publication or distribution in any way)

Your stories can be short or long, but remember that details make a story meaningful. They'll be most valuable if they focus on your personal experiences--the sights, smells, conversations, reactions, thoughts, rather than on speculation about what might have happened--so that people reading our stories feel as if they were with us in Ohio.

Also, please include a statement that you understand that you are contributing these stories to ACT, and that they may be used by ACT for education, promotion, or other purposes to help its efforts.

Thanks very much. We look forward to hearing from you!

Rachel Barber
Carolyn Sherman

ACT volunteers Columbus, Ohio

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