Events

It’s Friday, it’s Spring, it’s going to be beautiful… get out a bit and come celebrate Earth Day 2022 with the Dems (including new 5th District candidate Josh Throneburg, Sen. Creigh Deeds, and others)! Do yourself (and us) a favor and sample at least one of these events:

1.  UVA Climate March

The March starts at 3pm at the north side of the UVA Rotunda. The route is only a few blocks long and over by 5pm (or whenever you feel like it… it’s a spring Friday!).

 

2.  6-8pm Ix Art Park, “Fridays for Future” Festival

Books & painting & stickers for kids, selfies w/Greta Thunberg, music by “The Green Grannies”, voter registration information… and that’s just our booth! There will also be workshops & demos, a Thrifted Fashion Show, sustainability vendors, and a 2019 movie 2040 at 8pm which addresses practical solutions to environmental concerns (the filmmaker’s daughter will reach adulthood in 2040).

 

  3.  6-8pm Stonefield, “Love Mother Earth” Programs

Kid-friendly activities (book readings, painting, stickers), and voter registration info at our booth 6-8pm, then at 8pm they’re showing the 2005 movie Harvests of Hope; meet the innovative farmers, communities, and leaders who are planting the seeds of resilience for the future of food and our planet (Q&A afterwards).

The “Political Fun” group is participating in (count ‘em!) three Earth Day events. As many Dems as possible should come out (in your Cville Dems T-shirts!) to show the local environmental community that we are the environmentally responsible party.

1. 3pm UVA Climate March – starts at the North side of the Rotunda and ends at the park in front of the UVA Main Heating Plant, located on the corner of JPA and West Main Street (where the George Rogers Clark Monument used to be). The march will end by 5 pm at the latest.
2. 6-8pm Earth Day Tabling – at IX Art Park (Fridays for Future) with a performance by The Green Grannies. Nancy Damon is our booth coordinator.
3. 6-8pm Earth Day Tabling – at Stonefield (Love Mother Earth). Barbara Shenefield is our booth coordinator.

We’re registering new voters and chatting with attendees as always at all three, but at events #2 and #3 we’re also doing kid-friendly activities (e.g. reading picture books and coloring).

Events #1 and #2 will feature our new cardboard cutout of environmental celeb Greta Thunberg; come by and take a selfie!

Amateurs and pros are asked to submit their photos for all kinds of purposes, perhaps including a new website banner image. We’d love to have some good shots illustrating the kind of Charlottesville that Dems aspire to live in (e.g showing diversity of all kinds, people caring for each other, kids having fun, empowered women, etc. etc.).

That’s where you can come in. Please email us a photo (or two or three!) that you’ve taken that you think might fit that spec; we’ll give you a photo credit for any that we use and a big shoutout in the newsletter

We Cville Dems are frugal; we don’t even have an office or our own phone#! But we can’t avoid some expenses: state party dues, printing voter registration information, website hosting, etc.
To help “keep the lights on” in our non-existent office:

• Pay your $15 annual dues via our ActBlue account.
• Make a donation. Setting up a small automatic monthly donation via ActBlue is super-easy and painless! Consider $5 a month, or whatever works for you.
• Support our occasional fundraisers.

The Swords into Plowshares project is seeking community input on how Charlottesville might repurpose the bronze in the Lee statue to create new works of public art. Please take a minute to take its survey here.

    The Cville Dems officers are starting to meet with precinct chairs to get to know everyone a bit better. Nancy, Dashad, Mary Ann and John met last Friday with Johnson Co-Chair Carrie Schaeffer, Carver Co-Chair Kathryn Laughon, and Key Rec Co-Chairs Barbara Shenefield and Erin Corbett at Cville Coffee. Views were shared about priorities, tactics, and ideas (as well as some colorful stories of how they all got involved with the Dems!). Carrie‘s idea of having informal backyard get-togethers in each precinct made quite an impression!