With just 171 days to go before the election, things are rockin' here at IndiMarin. And this week, we get to do some name-dropping as well. We have a very special guest at our upcoming membership meeting, and two new "star-studded" voter outreach programs to tell you about. So here goes. We hope that you will join us for them all!

First, we are very pleased to announce that Congressman Jared Huffman will be the guest speaker at our Virtual Membership Meeting on Friday, 5/22 at 4 PM. He will provide updates on congressional actions related to COVID relief efforts, election protection, and maintaining the post office; as well as his new housing bill, the COVID-19 SHELTER Act of 2020. There will be a Q&A period following by some updates from IndiMarin leaders on programs to help #WinBackDemocracy and ways for you to be involved in the effort. Zoom limits the number of participants to 100. Please sign up soon to be sure to reserve a spot. After this advance notification to our members, we plan to invite members of all activist groups in Marin. Sign up here.

In another exciting announcement, IndiMarin is launching a new program to write to voters, in addition to our popular and successful postcard program. We will now also be writing letters to voters as part of the The Big Send campaign sponsored by with Swing Left and Vote Forward. The goal of The Big Send is to mail 10 million letters to swing state voters who are historically underrepresented and unlikely to vote. Letter writers will add personal messages on the letters about why they vote. Watch this great animated video with voiceovers by Kyra Sedgewick and Kevin Bacon to learn more.

We have a two-step launch planned. First, join a national letter-writing event with Kyra Sedgwick and Kathryn Hahn, committed activists and accomplished actors, to hand write letters to potential voters asking them to vote in critical elections. Sign up for the national event with Kyra and Kathryn here. Then, join IndiMarin's kick-off letter writing event to learn the nuts and bolts of how our members can to get involved in this great program! Sign up for the IndiMarin launch here.

Lastly, we have another fun opportunity to phonebank with Beto O'Rourke on both Monday, May 18 from 4:30 - 7:00 PM Pacific Time and Thursday at the same time. His new organization, Powered by People, is dedicated to registering hundreds of thousands of Democrats who have moved to Texas but are not yet registered to vote.

Sign up for the Monday phonebank here and for the Thursday phonebank here. Note that the times listed are Central Time.
Many of our members participated last week and really enjoyed the calls. Not only is it pretty cool to be in a Zoom phonebank with Beto who is super engaged and and interactive with the volunteers, but also the people we are calling in Texas have been a friendly bunch as well.

Note: To participate, you must attend a 30 minute training led by Powered by People. They have a wide range of times for the training including six time slots before the Monday phonebank. Sign up to attend a training here.

Thank you for your commitment to helping those in need in our country, and to protecting the essence of our democracy - the right to vote!