
{"id":3716,"date":"2008-10-23T08:09:48","date_gmt":"2008-10-23T16:09:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=3716"},"modified":"2008-10-26T06:36:43","modified_gmt":"2008-10-26T14:36:43","slug":"recently-mamas-wanting-everybody-for-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2008\/10\/23\/recently-mamas-wanting-everybody-for-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Recently: Mamas wanting everybody for Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Valarie Schwartz<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In less than a month, a local grassroots effort has brought Chapel Hill among 18 other towns across the country that will hold Moms for Obama rallies at the same time on the Saturday before Election Day.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nHere, we call it \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mamas for Obama,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but everyone is invited to the rally from 3 to 5 p.m. Nov. 1 on the Southern Village green. <\/p>\n<p>The roots started entwining in late September when Christine Ellestad received an email about the national rally day. It lit a fire, especially when she saw that no rally was planned for anywhere in the Southeast Atlantic region (two in Florida have since been added).<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I sent out an email letter to those who might be interested,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d inviting them to her house for an organizing meeting. Her letter was sent to others\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 list serves and, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s come forward ever since with a small core group really working hard on the day-to-day,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ellestad, formerly a Republican. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really the networking that made it happen. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a web of women who get things done in this town.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<br \/>\nAmong them was Jennifer Schmidt, who had recently created a grassroots movement of her own. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Back in September, a friend \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Claudia Martinez-Wayman \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and I were so disgusted with the Sarah Palin-speaks-for-women line that we organized a Mamas for Obama bake sale for the Carrboro Music Festival,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Schmidt said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sarah Palin certainly doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak for me or represent me in any shape or form.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In less than two weeks, they had 40 volunteers lined up to bake and sell items. In order to help people recognize the cause, she ironed the Mamas for Obama logo on 10 Carolina blue t-shirts for the volunteers to wear. They raised almost $1,900 (including selling 40 more t-shirts), which was sent to the Obama campaign.<br \/>\nSchmidt went to Ellestad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meeting and when the subject of fundraising was discussed, Schmidt knew how to do it \u00e2\u20ac\u201d by selling Mama for Obama T-shirts and My Mama\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s for Obama T-shirts.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153That was about 250 shirts ago,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Schmidt said Tuesday. She has turned the Chapel Hill home she shares with her husband, Kurt, and their 2-year-old daughter, Anneke, into a t-shirt factory. They have been sold to people around the country, some of which were sent to Japan and England. She provides her labor for free and negotiated a great price with a local supplier so that the profit is $7.50 for shirts that sell for $10. <\/p>\n<p>A neighbor of Ellestad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sent the email to Desiree Goldman, who has become logistical coordinator. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153She is the one who got many of the other women on board to help,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ellestad said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She got us a connection with Julia Mack, whose staff translated our flyer into Spanish and did all our graphic design work; she connected me with Delores Bailey at Empowerment, who got the word out to the African American community; she helped us get in touch with Pat Neagle, who got us two local bands, Velvet and Jule Brown, for free; she got the site in Southern Village and event insurance to cover it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Goldman has been motivated since the primaries when Obama caught the attention of her 13-year-old son, Steele.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153He got an Obama bumper sticker for his bicycle and said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcMom, Barack\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got to win.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 I promised him he would and now I have to make it happen. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much easier not to talk politics with people, but this time I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m taking a stand and enrolling other people to see that this is the guy and this is the time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Alethea Gerding, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate who served as an officer in the Navy for seven years, will be among several speakers at the rally. Her husband, Glenn, and their neighbor Dan Hunt built a USS Obama float for the Fourth of July parade, which will provide some fun for children at the rally.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The first politician I ever gave money to was John McCain, in 2000,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Gerding said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was an honor \u00e2\u20ac\u201d he graduated from the same place I did. That was back when he really was a maverick. He was reasonable and honorable and it felt OK to support the man and disagree on the issues. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve changed my mind about that. The issues are incredibly important.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never done anything like this before,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Schmidt said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never felt such a need to be involved and do something.. . . I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m doing it for my daughter \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and all daughters and sons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Learn more at obama-mamas.com\/rally, then click on the Chapel Hill link to register (not required for attendance).<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Valarie Schwartz at 923-3746 or valariekays AT mac DOT com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Valarie Schwartz In less than a month, a local grassroots effort has brought Chapel Hill among 18 other towns across the country that will hold Moms for Obama rallies at the same time on the Saturday before Election Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-recently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}