John Calabrese, Field Organize – Menomonie

I invite you to put the headlines aside for a moment, take a deep breath, and join me right here.

Just a few weeks ago on April 2nd, a crowd watched election results roll in from a local bar in downtown Menomonie. GROWW’s All in Favor team had just wrapped up our second spring campaign to endorse and elect representatives to our town, county and school boards.

Over the previous months, I worked with teams in Dunn, Pierce, Polk, and St Croix counties who knocked on more than 900 doors and made nearly 1600 phone calls to neighbors to get our communities’ skin in the game. These offices hold sway over everything from our local businesses and farms to the housing and water we depend on to the schools where our kids learn and grow. If western Wisconsin is going to be a place where we can all thrive, we need to be able to lead year-round from these powerful positions, and the All in Favor county teams know this better than most.

Too many of our people are struggling to get by, facing rising costs, crappy housing, and worry about our kids’ falling behind or moving away. Meanwhile, corporate interests have worked for years to conspire with some political insiders to rig the rules of our economy and governments to serve themselves and their friends.

All spring long, I watched All in Favor leaders – local, everyday people – step up as community members as well as candidates. We took responsibility for our future by embracing age-old organizing practices. I saw people who had never knocked on a door walk up their neighbors’ front steps. I witnessed leaders who started out scared to make a phone call dial their first number and go on to talk with dozens of other voters. One conversation and then another, their leadership paid off.

On election night, thanks in part to our organizing, Western Wisconsin watched as 5 more GROWW endorsed candidates were elected to office, ready to get to work.

• Sydney Brennan of Menomonie, a student at UW Stout who heard about the GROWW housing team, then added their renter protection plan to her platform, defeated an incumbent and will now serve on the City Council;
• Mary McGurran, a social worker and longtime resident of the Village of North Hudson will begin her third term as a Village Trustee;
• Michael Page, a former City Council member passionate about renewable energy, will serve again in River Falls;
• and Bryan Dahl and Maria Rudie will serve the students, faculty and people of the Hudson School district on the Hudson School Board.

Even where we had disappointments, we spread hope. We fell short electing first-time candidates Angie Barker and Addison Fillatreaux in Saint Croix county and Philip Staley in Polk county, but with them, we had new conversations, started new relationships and set the stage for stronger organizing.

In GROWW, we’re not waiting for any hero on high to come save us, and our work is not done after election day. Even now, our Housing Justice team is pushing their City Council – including Sydney Brennan – to embrace solutions to make sure everyone in Menomonie has a safe place to live. All year long, ordinary people gathering together, hashing things out, and then getting to work solving problems can set the agendas that govern our towns, cities, and counties.

We’re taking matters into our own hands and working with our neighbors to make sure we leave Wisconsin better than we found it.

So, once again, I invite you to take a deep breath, and join us.