[ [link removed] ]Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress




This is Fiorella, an organizer with Team AOC. I’m about to share with you
a project that we’ve been working on that’s near and dear to my heart.
It’s something that no other congressional campaigns have tried before,
but we are.

Let me explain.

As you may know, our district is majority Spanish-speaking and it’s very
important to us to build a strong relationship and connection with our
Spanish-speaking community. We’ve also seen that Latino communities are
too often the targets of disinformation, so it’s crucial that we share
accurate information and resources regularly.

So, our team put our heads together and we realized that the best way to
reach these community members would not be on Twitter or traditional
social media. We thought… “Hey, the average street vendor in our district
is not on Twitter, but they might be on WhatsApp”.

So we launched Wasapea Con AOC, a WhatsApp group for Spanish-speakers in
our district to share information, build community, and provide needed
resources for NY-14 residents:

[ [link removed] ]Wasapea con AOC

When we first started it, I didn’t know what to expect or if it would take
off. We began by sending out emails and texts inviting people to join and
passing out flyers – and, steadily our numbers started to grow.

I knew we were on to something when I was at a community event talking to
a street vendor, and when I told her my name – she recognized it from the
WhatsApp group (since I regularly post in the group)! She even asked to
take a photo with me to share with the group later. Here’s the photo:

[ [link removed] ]Fiorella with group at community event

I’m proud to say that we’re up to 163 people and counting! We open the
group about once or twice a week, and we always start with an icebreaker
and then see where the conversation goes.

My favorite part about the group is that it’s not just a one-way
conversation – it’s a discussion space between community members. While we
certainly share what Alexandria is doing in DC, The Bronx, and Queens to
help our families and about our events, I’ve seen people ask for
recommendations for child care, after school programs, and more – and get
answers from other community members. Seeing people discuss issues in the
neighborhood and give each other advice and resources is truly amazing.

We also use it as a place to listen and answer questions from community
members. We were getting a lot of questions like, “who should I call about
__?” so we decided to put together a resource page on our website for
common questions around worker and tenant rights, affordable housing,
immigration, and many other topics that are important to working families.

But we have so much more we want to do, and that’s why I’m asking for your
help.

If you can, I am asking you to make a contribution to help us leverage
this momentum and grow this WhatsApp group to be as big and powerful as it
can be. Here’s the link to donate:

[ [link removed] ][link removed]

Here’s what we have planned for the program (pending we have the resources
to do it): 

 1. Host a policy hours live discussion specifically for our WhatsApp
community that focuses on Latino issues including the economy and
financial education. Rampant disinformation and frustration with
political institutions have Latino voters moving more and more
Republican, but we refuse to leave them behind. With your support, we
can host more of these discussions on other topics in the future.

 2. Create a financial education toolkit that provides further resources
to assist our WhatsApp group with financial education. We know that a
one-hour session isn’t enough so we want community members to have a
resource for ongoing education.

 3. Get more sign ups. With your help, we can run more Spanish-language
ads, send more texts, and grow this program to reach more
Spanish-speakers in NY-14.

 4. Serve as a model for distributed organizing. If this program is
successful, we hope it can be a model for other communities to provide
community support, communicate regularly with their representatives,
and help people get the resources they need. 

We could leave the program as-is, but I want to expand it to be as big as
it can be. The only way we can do that is with a massive amount of staff
and volunteer time, and the right resources.

So if you can give today at the link above, it would mean the world to us.

I’m incredibly grateful to work for Alexandria and this community. I can’t
think of very many people in her position who would allow their teams to
think outside the box and try new things like this. In a way, I think that
this program is the epitome of what our politics should be about: helping
and connecting people.

I’m also thankful for the people reading this email, the people who make
up this movement who are so full of heart and generosity. We’re doing
something great together. If you can be part of it by contributing, here’s
that link one more time:

[ [link removed] ][link removed]

Thanks for reading,

Fiorella Bini
Political Organizing Director
Team AOC


 

This email was sent to [email protected]. Email is the most important way we keep in touch with people like you, so thank you for reading to the end. Small donors like you keep us going. To contribute via check, please address to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for Congress, PO Box 680080, Corona, NY 11368.



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