What is Advocacy Day and why should I sign up for it immediately?!
If we can get enough legislative support, then we'll be able to get WaCASA included in the final state budget - but we can't do that without you!
I'm sure that many of you've been hearing a lot about Advocacy Day and how important it is for you all to sign up, but I'm also sure that many of you don't know what Advocacy Day is, never mind why you should sign up! Advocacy Day is a day when CASA volunteers, legislative partners, program staff, and members of WaCASA's Board of Directors meet in Olympia to storm the hill and make sure that every legislator knows what CASA is, and why they should support it. While Advocacy Day is important every year, this year will be especially pivotal because of the governor's proposal to cut all of WaCASA's funding. If we can get enough legislative support, then we'll be able to get WaCASA included in the final state budget - but we can't do that without you!
Advocacy Day is on Thursday, February 12, 2009 and will run from 10:00am-3:00pm. We'll meet at Saint John's Episcopal Church in Olympia at 10:00am, and then listen to Marcia Fromhold (WaCASA's lobbyist) go over what info to talk about at our meetings with legislators and answer ALL of your questions. Then we'll eat lunch (provided by WaCASA!), and walk to the Capitol in time to get to our meetings.
Go to our 'Upcoming Events' webpage, then click on 'Advocacy Day' and follow the instructions to register. You'll need to enter your district number - go to http://www.leg.wa.gov/legislature if you don't know your district. Our goal is to set up one meeting per legislator, and then to have as many CASA folk as we can go to that meeting. WaCASA's website will tell you if a meeting has already been set up with your legislators - if it has been, plan to go to those meetings. If nobody's set up the meetings yet, then you'll be given your legislator's contact info and all you need to do is call and say you'd like a meeting with your legislator on February 12th. Please do this ASAP! Legislator's calendars are filling quickly, and we want to make sure we're on them.
Please talk to your program managers and other CASA volunteers about Advocacy Day and to coordinate carpools - we need to make it as big as possible! As always, give me a call at 206.667.9716 if you have any questions.
