The past five months have seen ARRM members engaged in grassroots advocacy across the state. Through all of your grassroots work we have educated legislators, candidates and those in the community about disability issues, and showed that disability services are a core government service that should be protected. Below is a snapshot of some of the great work going on statewide.
Candidate Forums: ARRM members have been holding candidate forums across the state in the last couple months. Through all your hard work we have had 60 candidates out at disability centered candidate forums, educating new candidates and legislators alike.
Site Visits: Site visits are still the best tool we have as providers to show legislators the daily work that is being done for people with disabilities. Throughout the last couple months ARRM members have had 14 site visits, with many more coming up post election.
Advocacy BBQs: Partnering with the MN CCD, ARRM assisted this summer in planning advocacy BBQ’s for the disability community. At these BBQs dozens of candidates from the Minneapolis metro area were able to mingle and talk with the disability community about the issues that are most important to them.
Grassroots Roadshow: Barb Brynstad and Sara Krogman have been available for one-on-one training with members to talk about grassroots advocacy. Not only is this a great resource for members only, this is an opportunity to get the framework and set goals for your agencies grassroots efforts. To date Barb and Sara have spoken with seven different organizations, with many more scheduled in the next couple months.
Stephanie Vance Training: In September, ARRM brought in Advocacy Guru Stephanie Vance to do a half day training on the importance of grassroots advocacy. This training was tailored to DSPs, family members and self advocates. ARRM was thrilled to have almost 175 people register and attend this event. After a great training they are now more prepared to go forth and advocate!
Advocacy Partners: The Advocacy Partner program is the foundation of ARRM’s grassroots program. We have added three new partners to the program to provide additional peer-to-peer support.
Special Recognition: This year at our Annual Leadership Conference, ARRM recognized Rep. Rod Hamilton (R-22B) with the ARRM Cares Leadership Award for his extraordinary work during the last legislative session. Rep. Hamilton has been a champion of disability issues and truly one of our strongest advocates at the Capitol, we at ARRM are very thankful to him.
This past month, at an event hosted by Lutheran Social Service, ARRRM also recognized Rep. Patti Fritz (D-26B) for her past leadership within the DFL caucus on issues related the disabled and elderly. We are very thankful to her and the work she does everyday representing the disabled and elderly communities.
For more information on how you can get involved in grassroots advocacy please visit our advocacy arsenal by clicking here: http://www.arrm.org/advocacy/ or contact Sara Krogman at skrogman@arrm.org.
--Sara Krogman, Field Coordinator