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Your voice matters. Use it.
I learned that while growing up in New Haven, near Edgewood Park. There was a spring park clean-up event that got pitched to my eighth-grade class on a warm and sunny Saturday. I went, met nice people, felt useful and they gave me a T-shirt. It clicked for me that day.
I went to High School in the Community in New Haven. The teachers were amazing, and the students came from every walk of life you can imagine. The curriculum integrated current events, community immersion, hands-on learning and service into the traditional academic subjects. One class called “The Politics of Food” took us to a farm, a restaurant, a grocery store, a slaughterhouse and a soup kitchen. This kind of exposure helped me to learn about systems, and how they impacted our school and our community. I’m still learning, but my career path probably started in high school.
As a lobbyist, I feel so lucky to represent mission-driven organizations. The people I represent are change makers and doers. They see a problem and try to help, which naturally leads to leveraging or changing systems. Because we work together to change the status quo, we have to ask questions, seek answers, gather data and make our case to decision-makers at the state level.
Building campaigns, whether political or issue-based, calls for community engagement and an accountability loop that can create positive changes in our communities. Volunteers become campaign managers, grass roots members become content experts, and sometimes constituents become elected officials. It can be very empowering for people when they get involved.
I’m proud that I am representing clients and issues that I wrote papers about in high school and college. I have been involved in a series of issues that have improved lives for people in our state – housing, healthcare, energy assistance, gun safety, voting rights, gay marriage, abortion access, free school meals.
However, these accomplishments would not be possible without CT residents getting involved and telling their stories. Each story is powerful. Legislators are very interested in hearing about how a policy or a budget item impacts their district – their constituents. In lobbying, we work hard to cultivate and find those stories and connect them to legislators. Lobbyists do the “what,” but the stories are often the “why.” It all goes back to Your voice matters. Use it.
Personally, I’m very proud of my two college-age sons – who are politically engaged in their own right. We sometimes disagree, but I also know they have done their research. They sometimes teach me a thing or two.
When I’m not working or learning from my sons, I’m a theater geek and love to sing. I hope to be a back-up singer someday because harmonizing is fun. I’ve been in a pre-dawn running posse for about 14 years, and we have run a LOT of half-marathons together. I’m married to Rob, my favorite techie (we met at UCONN on a Shakespeare production). In addition to our boys, we have a pandemic puppy, Sasha, who is the star of our show.
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