Balloon Juice Zooms

** Can I just say that bleach blonde, bad built, butch body is a hard act to follow? **

I want to share a little bit about our zoom with VAAC.  (Voting Access for All)  If you want to learn more about VAAC, click on the targeted fundraising category under the post title, and it will bring up several posts that will tell you more about VAAC.

One of the BJ peeps at the zoom said I should include this video in every VAAC post, so here you go!

VAAC is all about voting access, but their work isn’t only about voting.

A few things that I learned at the zoom.

It’s a while different world out there if you’re poor and you’re black.  I mean, I knew that was true, but holy shit, it’s different hearing about it up close.

One person at the zoom had been sentenced to 25 years – as a teen – for stealing a purse from a white woman, after having gotten in some mild trouble before that.  To go through that and not come out bitter?  These are special people.   I have no words.

One person said that Danny was her brother – not literally, but figuratively, and she continues this work in his name, carrying his work forward.  She talked about “Danny’s Law” – legislation that folks at VAAC are pushing forward.

They are also working on a law that requires that young offenders have to be provided with an education while they are incarcerated.

Toward the end of the zoom, E.B. chimed in with one final comment.  (We first met E.B. at our zoom in 2022.)  She said she is grateful for our support – well, okay, many of the VAAC folks who were there said that – and then she talked about how other groups support them and it’s “one and done”.  Some groups donate once so they can get a tax write-off, and then they move on.

Though she didn’t say it in so many words, I was left with the impression that some other white liberal groups donate once so they can “check the box”, pat themselves on the back, and then move on.  E.B. seemed moved by the fact that we came back, that we are still here, that we are their partners in every sense of the word.  I was touched by that, and I know at least one of the other BJ peeps felt the same.

Putting in a plug for our fundraising.

We have $130 left on our current angel match, and then we have one more angel waiting in the wings.  These are 4x matches up to $100 per person, and the match will reset as soon as we finish the current match.

We are out of angels for the time being.  So now it’s just the single match from the external donor.

We are just  $3,955  $1,550 away from meeting our $25,000 goal, and I’m hoping we’ll get there this weekend.

Anyway, back to the zoom, those were my takeaways, what were yours?

 

 

 

Voting Access for All (VAAC) Zoom Follow-UpPost + Comments (106)