I just sent the email below to the “Friends of Obama Works” list. If you’re not on it - or if you are! - I’d love to hear your responses and discussion here as well:

There’s a question that’s been nagging at me.

What’s the opposite of right-wing conservatives loudly disrupting town hall meetings?

How about this: a National Day of Service for Healthcare, when Democrats, Republicans and Independents rally to support sensible healthcare reform - not by shouting and yelling, but by doing something constructive for their communities? Wouldn’t that send a powerful message about what we stand for - and how we stand for it?

You haven’t heard from us at Obama Works for a while. But while the healthcare debates have raged these past few weeks, we’ve become increasingly frustrated to watch them devolve into a shouting match. I suspect many of you feel the same way. So what I’m wondering is this:

If we worked like crazy for one month to reactivate our volunteers, recruit new ones, and plan a nationwide Day of Service for Healthcare, would you join us?

I’m not asking for your opinion just to get your attention. Obama Works was never a hierarchical, top-down organization. If we’re going to try this, we need to know that you’re on board. Otherwise, we just can’t do it.

Before you answer - and we do need your answer, whether it’s yes or no - let me tell you a bit more about what we’re thinking. We’d announce the Day of Service as soon as possible and try to get the word out online and in our communities. We’d frame it as an antidote to the nastiness of the healthcare reform debate, and a chance to make our commitment to fair healthcare reform real. We’d encourage service events related to healthcare: raising funds for a local free clinic, volunteering at a hospital. But as always, we’d give you the choice of what you want to do - and, as best we can, give you the tools to help you do it. We’d also do a full-court-press on the media to try and get the message out.

Are you in? Please, reply to this message with your answer - and your ideas.

Paul Selker & David Manners-Weber
Obama Works

More coming soon - nearly a week after, I’m still stunned that Barack Obama is our President-elect!

Thank you so much, for everything that you all have done over the past months. We’ve come a long way since Justin and I were up working in New Hampshire over the primaries, and I can’t wait to see where we as a country go next.

Just had a terrific time this Saturday helping with a community cleanup in the Newhallville neighborhood of New Haven. About two dozen folks came out on a gorgeous fall day to clean up the sidewalks (New England autumn puts a lot of leaves on the ground!), and I know I couldn’t have had more fun. We ended up filling up about 30 enormous bags of trash and leaves, plus registering a few voters while we were at it! The event was such a success that we’re planning on helping out with neighborhood cleanups in Dixwell and Dwight. Big props to Scott, James, and Alfreda, a few of the folks who really made this wonderful day come together!

Photos to come soon!

P.S. Check out coverage in the Yale Daily News here!

Missoula, Montana has done it again.  They’re one of our most active local Obama Works groups and I couldn’t be happier about this video - once you watch it, I think you’ll agree.  You may have caught their fantastic river cleanup video earlier this year, and this one doesn’t disappoint.  Enjoy!

After getting rained out on the Day of Service, the dedicated folks in York, PA managed to reschedule for this past Saturday. For this project, they headed out to work on a local garden. Here’s our friend Laura with more:

Mike Martin was homeless earlier this year when he discovered a vacant overgrown lot in downtown York, and petitioned the city for a lease to create a vegetable garden. Through his passion for gardening and hours of hard work, Mike’s “Garden of Angels” has produced over eight hundred of pounds of fruits and vegetables, from cantaloupes and watermelons, to tomatoes, peppers, spinach and okra. Mike gives away his produce for free by taking it door to door in the community.

Mike came to an Obama Works meeting this July. He is not particularly political, but had heard of about our community service efforts and was looking for some help with specific projects and ongoing maintenance of the garden.  We started to send individuals to the garden to help out whenever possible, and also set up a group event for September 6^th, Obama Works National Day of Service.

September 6^th, unfortunately, was a total wash out. But a couple of weeks later, ten volunteers came together on a gorgeous autumn day and spent the afternoon working at the garden. We did a variety of projects including cleaning out beds that were finished for the season, building new beds, hauling many wheelbarrows of dirt to even out the terrain, weeding, mowing and picking. At the end of the afternoon, a few local children stopped by and we loaded them up with tomatoes, bell peppers and green beans to take back to their families.

Laura says there will be pictures to come, and we’ll be adding them once we have them - but I think it’s  safe to say already that this event was a resounding success!

Update: Photos!

The whole gang

Hard at work!

For more photos from the event, check out the images page!

I’m happy to report that the wonderful Obama Works Twin Cities group (their wrap-up is posted on the Day of Service page) has been featured on the BarackObama.com blog!  Check it out here:

Fulfilling their agreement to work rain or shine, the volunteers rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty, helping landscape two homes in dismal weather.

“It was hard, muddy work but very satisfying to see how we transformed these small urban yards into beautiful gardens,” said Vina, the event coordinator. “Each of the families worked alongside us, and we could see that they were grateful for the help and very proud of their homes.”

Vina put together the event with Obama Works Twin Cities, the local chapter of national group dedicated to community service. The group takes its inspiration from Barack and his call to “be the change we seek.”

“We all wore Obama Works plackets and buttons and t-shirts, and were complimented on our work by neighbors passing by. And at the end, we helped the family stake an Obama sign in their yard!”

Obama Works Alexandria group is doing great work in Virginia.  (A crucial swing state!)  They were rained out on the National Day of Service, but that didn’t stop them for long; they came together today and put together a fantastic park cleanup.  The below writeup is courtesy of Jill Murray:

On a perfect early fall morning, more than 20 energetic volunteers, inspired by Sen. Obama’s call to service, pitched in to clean up Jones Point Park Alexandria, VA on Sept. 20. Jones Point Park, the largest open space in the Old Town Historic area, encompasses 60 acres in the southeast corner of Alexandria, Virginia, at the site of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge.   The Park is owned by the National Park Service and managed by the Alexandria Department of Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities. Because of the somewhat remote location along the Potomac River, it doesn’t receive some of the attention given to other open spaces in the city.  Volunteers showed up with work gloves and enthusiasm for the event. The park is used primarily as a dog walking area and several regulars let us know what a great job we had done in beautifying the shoreline.  What a great morning it was and what a terrific group of people answered the call to service.

A great event!  Also make sure to check out our Day of Service page for similar wrapups of events that happened on the 6th as we post them.

Our very own David Broockman, Obama delegate and Obama Works member, has been featured on the front page of BarackObama.com!

David is only 19, but you wouldn’t know it from the length of his resume. Growing up in Texas, he completed over 2,300 hours of community service. He was involved with the Dean and Kerry campaigns in 2004, knocking on doors and making phonecalls from local offices. He later interned for Congressman Lloyd Doggett before moving to Connecticut for school.

It was in Connecticut that David became involved in our campaign through…Obama Works, which does community service as they help to spread Barack Obama’s message of real change.

[BarackObama.com HQ Blog]

On our site, David makes a bit of a cameo in the “Why Obama Works” video here, as he helps clean up New Haven.  Congrats, David, on being elected a delegate and being featured on the Obama site–enjoy Denver!

All,

Today, we’re proud to announce Obama Works’ latest project: the Obama Works / Democrats Work National Day of Service!

On September 6th, people across the nation will come together to create positive change, and show the country what a motivated, inspired group of citizens can achieve.  Senator Obama once commented that the government must meet the people halfway, that we won’t thrive without a strong investment to our communities by both groups.  If either doesn’t live up to their end of the bargain - if government is neglectful, or the people apathetic and disinterested - the project of our communities will fail.

We want to be an example of what it is to be invested in our communities.   And we’re asking for your help in doing it.  In fact, we need it.  As David, Justin and I said in our newsletter this morning, without you, the three of us would just be three guys sweeping up a street corner on September 6th.   So, check out the Day of Service page on our site, see if there’s an event planned in your area - and if there’s not, shoot us an email, and we’ll work together to see if we can’t fix that.

Together, we can.

Good news!

Thanks to the generosity of Phillip Bump out of New York, we are proud to report that both obamaworks.com and obamaworks.org now reach our website.   Don’t try to email us there just yet, but in a few days that should be working as well.

Don’t worry, though, whyobamaworks.com and .org will still work fine, as will all of our email addresses there.

P.S. Stay tuned either today or tomorrow for a big announcement.

Paul