Talk to your people!! (In my case, teachers)

I felt like I was at a disadvantage because although I teach in Granite School District, I teach in Murray, on the "east side." My district includes Taylorsville and Kearns, on the "west side." Therefore, my teacher network felt pointless because I didn't know teachers in my voting district. I asked the teachers I know to reach out to other teachers they know, but I didn't follow up, I just hoped they remembered and took it on themselves to reach out to their fellow education contacts. BIG campaign rule: keep a list of who you've talked to, and follow up with them.

As part of the UEA Endorsement, I received a list of UEA members in my voting district. I was told to not share this list outside of my campaign circle, and to be careful sending emails to school emails. 

My campaign team decided to use the list to send handwritten postcards. And let me tell you, I was so proud of those postcards. I was anxious as all get out because we received the UEA list 09/28/22. We created the postcard design the next week and printed the postcards as soon as possible. I received them from my campaign lead on 10/05/22 (a Wednesday). In my head, I would pass out postcards to my teacher friends to fill out over fall break. That's an easy ask in my opinion. My campaign team vetoed that idea as we looked at the calendar and saw that ballots were mailed the Tuesday after fall break (10/18/22). That meant I needed to get these postcards out ASAP so that I could give my team enough time to address, stamp, and mail them before ballots were sent out.

Let's recap on this timeline: I got the list on 09/28/22, received postcards 10/05/22, passed them out 10/07/22 (a Friday) to get them back 10/10/22 (a Monday), before giving them to my team on 10/11/22 (a Tuesday). I flew to Boston for fall break on 10/12/22 and wouldn't be available to collect any more postcards. 

I barely slept Thursday night, 10/06/22. I was so anxious about how to distribute these postcards and get enough of them filled out. How can a girl focus when she has over 1000 postcards to fill out by hand?

This is where teachers come into play - and it was a beautiful, soul-filling moment. when I realized I had witnessed some sort of miracle. I passed out almost ALL of the postcards at work that Friday, and then passed out the rest to a couple of Utah Teacher Fellow friends. Although most of my teacher friends are not in my voting district, friends were taking stacks of these postcards with a little message I wanted them to write. I was relieved, and so incredibly touched by my teaching community. See the pictures below, because it was something special and magical. 

These postcards were 100% filled out by educators that know me personally. How rad is that?!

Now, back to the BIG campaign tip: follow through. I received that UEA list on 09/28/22 and I wish I had personally called or texted every single one of those educators. That was over 900 names, but if I had asked those teachers if they would take a yard sign, wear a t-shirt, post on their social media, etc., it could have made a difference. And I wouldn't have been nearly as nervous calling teachers as I was about calling random voters. A fellow campaign friend sent me this text the Monday before elections closed, and that was my hint that I could have done more. (For the record, she won her race, and I didn't.)

Talk. To. Your. People. Teachers are my people, and I could have held many more conversations with intention and boldness. I hoped that people were sharing my name with their friends, but I didn't follow through our utilize the resources I was given. I could have done a better job in that department.