DIY Civics in the Summer

My daughter and I leaping in front of the U.S. Capitol building

In the summer after a normal year, social media would be bursting with creative ideas to prevent kids from losing academic ground over the long break from school. These discussions are especially important in 2021 to protect the fragile gains our children made during virtual learning. But after all COVID-19 put us through, parents who had to share workspace with kids on Zoom class are probably not into reading posts about making math fun or enticing kids into doing a grammar worksheet.

I fall into that category for sure! Truth be told, we’re exhausted. I won’t require a lot from my offspring over the summer. But the past year has taught us that there is a subject none of us can afford to ignore: civics.

Citizen engagement doesn’t get a ton of attention in school. Reading, writing, and arithmetic get top billing and STEM classes (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) are super fashionable. Yet even in regular “American Government” social studies curriculum, students rarely learn how to engage with members of Congress beyond voting. That’s a shame, since the past year demonstrated all kinds of ways that government policy shapes our lives…for better or for worse.

COVID-19 hit people living in poverty and communities of color harder than the rest of America. It exposed all kids of problems in our nutrition safety net, housing policies, and health systems. Government policies for vaccine rollout and mask-wearing affected everyone. Voting rights and systemic racism came under the microscope, too. Citizen engagement is critical for a functioning democracy. This is a lesson our kids need to learn well before they graduate from high school.

I've never come across a camp focused saving the world using personal political power, so I’ve always taken a Do-It-Yourself route to teach my kids about democracy. Now, I have teens who are influencing policy all on their own! Here’s my five-step plan for introducing kids of all ages to impactful actions.

1. Pick an issue your kids can understand

   There’s no shortage of causes that need help. Start with something they can already understand for their age. Even the littlest littles understand people shouldn’t go hungry. Grade schoolers can understand the importance of school (even if they didn’t enjoy virtual learning). Older kids may already have concerns about our climate crisis and gun violence.

2. Find a reputable organization to give you basic talking points

   Advocacy groups have websites with great info, so you don’t have to start from scratch with your kids. Most of them have pre-written sample letters, too, so you can see what specific action you can request from members of Congress at this moment. Here are a few links with sample letters on various issues:

   Global Education (from RESULTS)

   Air Pollution (from the Moms Clean Air Force)

   Low-Income Housing Assistance (from RESULTS)

   Hunger (from Bread for the World)

   Gun Violence (from Everytown)

3. Look up your members of Congress

   Use govtrack.us to find your two U.S. senators and your U.S. representative. I recommend doing this step with your child for a couple of reasons. First, sometimes you need the “zip code plus four” if your congressional district is a little tricky. They might need help to find the zip code lookup. Second, you can learn about your members together by clicking around the information on govtrack.

4. Write a letter to Congress

   

   This 7 year old was well able to compose
   a handwritten letter to a U.S. senator

   If your kids are skilled enough to write note to Santa or Grandma, they can write to their members of Congress as well! Help them to write their own letters to members of Congress. Here's my blog with tips on exactly how to do this with kids using a simple format.

   Discuss the topic with them before they write and help them think about their own reasons for supporting the issue. Absolutely let them know how you feel, but be prepared to listen. You might learn from them!

   Encourage them to personalize their letter and deviate from the script if they wish. Kid-pictures are always welcome. They sometimes end up being passed on directly to a senator or end up being tacked up on an aide’s desk because they are cute and unusual.

   When my daughter was in 2nd grade, she noticed as we looked up our Congresswoman’s name and address online that it was Jan Schakowky’s birthday. She added “Happy Birthday” to her letter. I was so surprised that when we got a response, Rep. Schakowksy wrote a personal note thanking her for the birthday greeting and responding to the individual details of the letter. My grownup mind would have never thought of adding that personal touch, but my daughter made a thoughtful connection.

5. Celebrate!

   

   My kids met Rep. Jan Schakowsky
   at a 4th of July parade

   If you feel comfortable with gatherings this summer, top off your lessons with a field trip to a 4th of July parade. Most members of Congress travel back to their states and districts to march or ride in Independence Day parades. A little detective work can turn up which ones they will attend, so you can take your kids to see the target of their advocacy.

   Also, be sure and celebrate when you get responses even if your senators or representatives don’t agree with you. Your kids still took an important step to tell Congress how they feel. With enough pressure from more letters from more people, they just might change their minds. Brainstorm about how to get more letters. Ask the entire family to write? Invite friends to write? Write with a scouting group?

First grade Girl Scout Daisies make a colorful banner for their
senator about empowering girls through education.

If your child takes a liking to your letter-writing exercise, there are more ways they can take action. If they are old enough to have an email account, you can help them take an online action to contact Congress or the President. Or, they might like to actually call a congressional office on the phone or make a video showing other people how to call-in to Congress. 

Whatever you choose to do, I encourage you to find an issue that will make the world a better place and help your children feel they are a part of the democracy we live in!

To Mask or Not to Mask?

Cindy wearing a CARE mask that says
"SAVE LIVES"

Here we are at last. The CDC announced that vaccinated folk don’t have to wear our masks anymore, outdoors or indoors. Yay! Kind of…

This announcement doesn’t mean the COVID-19 pandemic is over, but it shows we’re firmly moving into a next phase of the pandemic. This phase might be less frightening in the US, but it’s still terrifying for those living in countries like India and Nepal where COVID-19 runs rampant with cities running out of oxygen and funeral pyres burn in the streets. It’s still frustrating for low-income countries like Ghana and Trinidad & Tobago lacking vaccines for a significant portion of their population.

So, now that vaccinated Americans have a new freedom we can exercise, what now? We’re not at 100% vaccination coverage…heck we don’t even have the 70-80% required for herd immunity. We can’t tell by looking at people whether they had the vaccine. How should we think about it?

Kindness Still Matters.

One of my mommy-mantras that I say to my kids is: “Just because you CAN do a thing, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do a thing.” While I look forward to putting my mask aside in some situations, I think my mantra can help us consider when and wear to keep our masks on.

Last year, I wrote that staying home to “Flatten the Curve" was an act of kindness. Now, I’m saying that wearing a mask-even when you’re not required to-can be an act of kindness as well. Here are some ways wearing your mask in public can spread kindness and empathy.

Help others around you feel comfortable.

My 15-year-old just got her first dose yesterday. However, as she watched older kids and adults get vaccinated all around her in the last few months, she felt uncomfortable in situations where they would take off their masks and urge her to do the same. I know of another teen who has had such anxiety in the past year that she wears a mask even alone in her room just because it helps her feel comfortable and safe. 

We will still have a lot of tweens and teens unvaccinated for the next few months since the federal approval just happened this week. Plus, ALL children under 12 are still unvaccinated. Even though the risk is lower is lower these days, there are a lot of feelings still on high-alert. We can extend grace to those who feel anxious.

Protect the vulnerable among us.

 Tweet from Upgrade Accessibility warning that the 
CDC announcement is dangerous for
disabled/chronically ill people.

A norm of mask wearing helps keep our disabled, immunocompromised, and chronically ill friends safe. There are some among them unable to get the vaccine. Some of them are fully vaccinated, but suffer from poor immunity, so they just can’t gamble. If a vaccine is 94% effective against COVID-19, chances of contracting are small, but would be disastrous. Breakthrough cases are not common, but definitely expected. 

Tweet from vaccinated & immunocompromised 
individual asking for understanding for his
continued mask wearing.

You can’t tell who these folks are by looking at them. So, again, if someone asks you to put on a mask, don’t ask why. Just think about these reasons and be gracious as you mask up.

Set a good example.

You can help normalize wearing a mask for those that are afraid to get the vaccine, but still need to wear a mask. The CDC tells us that 65% of the US population is still unvaccinated today. That tells me that over half of Americans should still mask up indoors, including children from ages 2-12. Every parent knows kids are more likely to exhibit good behavior if parents are set a good example to follow. If I had kids under 12, I would surely mask up in solidarity, so they know it's important and don't get grumbly about it.

People’s reasons for not yet getting the COVID-19 are varied. It’s not that all of them just don’t care. I know there are people afraid of needles, afraid of the vaccine, afraid their immigration status will impact their vaccine access, afraid to take time off work to get vaccinated, afraid they can’t afford the vaccine (not true, it’s free!), etc, etc. We’ve got a lot of hurdles to overcome. While we overcome them, I don’t want any of those people to feel peer-pressured by ME to take their masks off! Because if they do, we’re all going to live with COVID-19 restrictions for a longer time.

Protect everyone from COVID-19 variants.

Cindy with her favorite Sustainable
Development Goal:
#3 Good Health & Well-Being

As a global health advocate, I can’t stress how important it is to continue to think globally. The global situation for COVID-19 variants is still very unstable, even for people who are fully vaccinated. We don’t yet have aggressive testing in place to track dangerous variants, so we won’t know about them until they are a serious problem.

We’ve gotten very lucky so far that none of the variants have yet eluded the current vaccines. Mask wearing both protects a population from variant outbreaks and provides fewer opportunities for dangerous variants to form during a pandemic phase (like right now) where the disease is still unchecked in a large part of the world.

In what situations will you still wear a mask? 

Will you put one on if someone asks you to do so?

Going the Extra Mile with Advocacy

Logo for
"The Extra Mile" podcast

I recently started listening to the Extra Mile podcast hosted by Charity Miles founder Gene Gurkoff. He interviews people going the extra mile for health and to make an impact. It made me reminisce about how I started using Charity Miles (a walking/running app that donates money according to your distance to causes you select) to “go the extra mile” for global immunization and hunger causes. I already gave money to organizations working on those issues, and Charity Miles became another way to contribute. But the biggest way I know how to go an extra mile for global health is to advocate.

Most people don’t really know what a volunteer advocate does, how it’s different from service volunteering, or how impactful the work can be. That’s why I started telling people the story of the river metaphor that I first heard at a Bread for the World conference. Here, I’ll tell it to you…

The River Metaphor

Image: A rocky river with a sharp 
dropoff ahead

Imagine you are having a picnic near the banks of a river. You hear a cry for help and see people fighting for their lives in the middle of the current. Mothers try to hold their babies above the water, but they are drowning. Children are being sucked under with exhausted parents.

You and your friends toss ropes into the raging waters to reach as many people as you can, one by one. The survivors are grateful, but they point upriver where even more victims are swept helplessly along. Maybe your buddies devise a brilliant system of ropes and pulleys to rescue multiple people, but there are far too many to save.

While your party is fishing people out of the raging waters, you turn your eyes upriver and wonder: “Why is this happening? Did a bridge collapse? Is there someone pushing people in the river? Is there some terrible danger up there that makes a perilous plunge the better choice?”

You hike upstream to prevent people from falling into the river in the first place. Because you are a change-focused advocate, you hike that extra mile to find the root cause of the suffering and strategically use your influence to eliminate that cause so that no one has to drown. Once you figure out a strategy to save the most people, you will speak up and convince your community to follow your plan.

Direct Service Versus Advocacy

The river illustrates the difference between “direct service” and “advocacy.” Direct service workers give of their energy and talents to help people in crisis. Disaster relief workers, soup kitchen servers, and polio vaccinators are examples of direct service providers. On-the-ground relief work can be incredibly satisfying as it connects volunteers directly to individuals who need help. Most people think about direct service when they think about volunteering and charity work.

Change advocates go the extra mile. They look for preventative solutions. They rally even more help for the long term.

At its best, advocacy is about seeking out root causes, finding effective solutions, and persuading other people to help implement those solutions.

I admit, the work can feel far removed from the people you are trying to help, which some find less rewarding than direct service roles.

Working to change a system requires an ability to delay desires for instant gratification and personal thanks. But when you know that no more people will fall into the metaphorical river or—in the real world—that children in your community are no longer need to go to a food bank for meals, it feels good knowing that you saved many more people than you ever could have if you never took the mental leap to leave the riverbank.

Serving Millions, Not Hundreds

As a busy mom, I have learned to ask myself: “Since I’m just one person, what’s the best use of my volunteer time to help the most people?”

When I was childless and single with lots of free time, I served dinner in a church soup kitchen. Standing behind serving tables, scooping casserole and welcoming hundreds of people became a highlight of my month. It warmed my heart to hear their words of thanks and to see children happily munching.

Over time, I worried about what soup kitchen clients did on days when they couldn’t get hot meals from the church. So, I moved a little farther upstream and began volunteering with the Greater Chicago Food Depository to supply food pantries all around the area. Although I felt like my work was making a difference, my personal efforts seemed dwarfed by the immense need. Unfortunately, even those efforts ended after my first baby was born. I stepped away from hands-on projects they weren't compatible with the hands-on work required for baby care.

Bread for the World
logo

Eventually, I learned from Bread for the World that I didn’t have to give up the battle against hunger even if I could no longer spend hours in a soup kitchen or food pantry. In fact, I learned that the work I had been doing was addressing only a symptom—hunger—without addressing its root cause—poverty. Lack of a living wage, mass incarceration, lack of affordable housing, and even food subsidies in the U.S. Farm Bill all play a part in perpetuating a cycle of poverty resulting in hunger.

If I wanted to help more people, I could use my voice to change the systems that perpetuate poverty. Plus, I could do that even while caring for my children. Of course, moving my efforts further up the river meant that I would never meet most of the people my work would benefit. But I soon discovered that I am okay with that because I know not everyone has patience for the congressional work that I do.  

Both Roles Are Vital

Even if you prefer to work as a direct service provider, you’ll probably find it satisfying to take a simple advocacy action now and then, such as writing to Congress or signing an online petition. You could also team up with an advocate who is working on a similar issue. Advocates can set up meetings with elected officials, write newspaper pieces, or arrange for public awareness events that create opportunities for direct service volunteers to tell their stories to the right people at the right time.

RESULTS advocates taking a turn at direct service 
by packing food to be shipped to people in need
with St. Louis World Food Day

Similarly, being an advocate does not mean you can never be involved in direct service. Hands-on work frequently provides inspiration and personal stories to fuel advocacy. You don’t have to choose between one and the other!

Food donations AND better government policies are needed to feed our communities, so we need direct service providers AND advocates to solve the complicated problem of hunger—and many others like it.

What kinds of direct service do YOU like to do? 

Can you combine it with advocacy, too?