From The Frontlines Of COVID: PA Stands Up

by David Ford

(All “From The Frontlines Of COVID” articles are summaries based on Zoom calls between Airlift and group leaders. Full audio is available upon request from donors.)

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“People are at home and they want to talk!”

So says Hannah Laurison, Executive Director of Pennsylvania Stands Up, in a conversation with the Airlift team. Hannah reported that their canvassers are having an easy time getting voters to open up about the problems they face: “The Covid crisis has really magnified all the issues that were on our radar.” 

As many of us have done, PA Stands Up went through several weeks of revamping the way they work. Through March, their game plan had been about making contact person-to-person by knocking on doors. Since they’ve had to change to calling people, it’s a good thing they can now get people on the phone! Hannah explains the change, “It’s scary and precarious, I won’t deny that. But I feel very proud of our team and how they’ve been able to pivot and identify new tactics.” This in spite of the fact that four of them have already lost family members to COVID-19.

Like many of the groups Airlift supports, PA Stands Up is providing local aid as well as political advocacy, asking people in the communities they serve what’s needed. One of the many areas of focus for Hannah’s group is health care: “With mass unemployment, people are losing their employer health care.” In response, PA Stands Up hasn’t missed a beat, disseminating information on where to find free food and helping with aid applications.

PA Stands Up has also begun a series of virtual forums with people like Varshini Prakash. She is the Executive Director and co-founder of Sunrise, a youth organization supporting the Green New Deal. Varshini can help voters make connections between the administration’s failure with addressing COVID-19 and its failure in addressing climate change. 

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania has passed its first vote-by-mail bill, but it’s new and confusing and it requires voters to re-register. So PA Stands Up is doing crucial work in assisting voters with the new procedures. Hannah reports that Republicans have been much quicker to engage their electorate than Democrats have, leaving organizations like PA Stands Up on the front line of preparing voters for the new system.

The Democratic candidate for president has been chosen, but Hannah is as excited by the down ballot candidates as the national ones. She knows what gets voters to the polls—candidates who have a direct, local impact on voters’ lives. 

“I want to emphasize the cohort of movement candidates that are running in PA. We have more than a dozen candidates running down ballot for state house and state assembly in competitive seats. We are working together to retake the gavel from the Republicans. So we will be sending some progressive voices to Harrisburg next year and not just from liberal Philadelphia but from central and western Pennsylvania, as well.” 

These candidates put their hearts into it just like PA Stands up does, and they are proving, through COVID-19, who will have voters’ backs.

From The Frontlines Of COVID: LUCHA

LUCHA Is Doing Essential Work For Arizona’s Essential Workers

by David Ford

(All “From The Frontlines Of COVID” articles are summaries based on Zoom calls between Airlift and group leaders. Full audio is available upon request from donors.)

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The folks at LUCHA can see that the Covid-19 crisis is a game changer.

Tomas Robles, LUCHA co-director, describes this shift in a recent conversation with Airlift staff:

“The essential workers are the grocery store workers and our farm workers, they are the ones who are feeding America. We’ve really been able to show that undocumented communities, low-wage communities, working family communities are much more necessary than the CEOs! I think you’ll have a lot more individuals, voters, community members who will feel more empathy towards those workers than they did last February.” 

Arizona, with its Republican governor and state legislature, has not responded to the changes the crisis has brought. The administration has been reluctant to act in order to reduce health impacts or to provide support to Arizonans who are reeling under the economic effects of the crisis. And Arizona has the resources to do more. The state has a 1.5 billion dollar ‘rainy day fund’ but Governor Ducey, stuck in old ways of thinking, wants to use that for tax cuts. 

Fellow co-director, Alejandra Gomez, outlined some of what LUCHA is doing to change the political landscape. “We are doing ‘LUCHA Listens’ work online to understand what resources our communities need at this time and that’s catapulting the legislative fight to really push Governor Ducey.” Like the other grassroots organizations Airlift supports, LUCHA is effective because they pay attention to what the community members say they need.

LUCHA doesn’t just reach out to workers:

“LAZOS is our network of small businesses that focuses on small business owners of color, who traditionally have very little say in landlord-tenant rights, contract procurement for state contracts, or state tax breaks that larger corporations receive. And most of them want to improve things in the community. They were very helpful in defeating the referendum to ban sanctuary cities that the Republican governor attempted to pass this year. It’s really helped to get our small and micro-business owners to see that they have influence that yields power. Mitzi, our LAZOS coordinator has done webinars on how to apply for small business loans during the crisis.” 

But of course, LUCHA itself has been hit hard by the crisis. All their work had been door-to-door and now it all has to move online. It’s a complete change of their tactics. You can watch this Facebook Live meeting to see exactly how they are effectively and efficiently pivoting to online grassroots work. We’re so proud of LUCHA.

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From The Frontlines Of COVID: New Georgia Project

New Georgia Project Has A Whole New Set Of Tactics

by David Ford

(All “From The Frontlines Of COVID” articles are summaries based on Zoom calls between Airlift and group leaders. Full audio is available upon request from donors.)


In times like these, what you need is someone like Nsé Ufot on your side. “We are changing our tactics, but not our goals,” says Ufot, the busy CEO of the New Georgia Project (NGP), who recently took time out to talk with Airlift’s fundraising folks about making political change during the current health crisis. 

Ufot told Airlift that, despite the pandemic, Georgia Republicans have been up to their usual tricks. Although they recently made vote-by-mail possible, they then created a complicated application process that will (unsurprisingly) make voting harder for the poor and the elderly. But, NGP remains undaunted:

“Our priorities come from conversations we have with voters. People know us for our large-scale registration work. We have registered 420,000 people of color. Our policy agenda and political agenda has always been informed by what’s at the top of the list for the people we organize with,” Ufot explains.

And, the team is showing unwavering determination and creativity in its efforts to protect and expand voting rights. For example, they’re engaging an Atlanta ice cream company in partnership to outfit ice cream trucks with scanners to help voters who need a copy of their driver’s license to send in with their ballots.

NPG still aims to turn 25 Georgia assembly seats blue this year, not because it’ll be easy, but because it has to be done. Georgia Republicans have blocked Medicaid expansion, which led directly to hospital closures. Georgia is the third worst state in terms of the uninsured, and—not surprisingly—the Covid19 death rate in Georgia is also one of the highest in the country.

Despite numerous uphill battles, NPG can hit their goals because they have the trust of underrepresented communities—trust they earned by being part of the community, by listening to and serving the communities they organize. Ufot clearly illustrates NGP’s invaluable community ties: 

“Clay County, that’s part of the rural black vote, there is no newspaper there and only one doctor, so during the Covid19 epidemic, our team sends out text messages whenever there’s breaking news, to make sure there is a credible voice communicating urgent messages to black citizens.”

Supporters of Airlift directly help groups like NGP (and their communities) reach their health care and COVID response goals. 

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