Brave enough to be the light.

On November 9th, 2016 I woke up with a weight on my heart, and my shoulders, that I had never felt before. The world had changed in a shocking and unimaginable way, and I knew I had to end my nonprofit “retirement” and get back to work. By Inauguration Day 2017, I had started Spread The Vote.

Four years later, we have built the first national ID-obtaining organization, the first ID advocacy organization with Project ID Action Fund, and have helped thousands of people get the IDs that allow them to vote, and change their lives. But, even as we spent every day working to help people get the IDs that they needed for basic survival and to access their most basic Democratic right, the weight of living in one of the most stressful eras in modern history, even before the pandemic, meant that we were working in a world with an unrelenting news cycle and constant, crushing sense of panic. Trial by fire can be a great way to blaze a new path, but it is not a good long-term strategy.

Yesterday, the Spread The Vote team took the day off to experience the historic inauguration of our first Black, Asian, female Vice President, and the pure joy of watching our insurrectionist-in-chief walk out of the White House for the last time. 

Today, we woke up feeling the same passion and urgency that we always feel for our work, but with lighter steps and calmer hearts.

I haven't sent a newsletter yet this year because, frankly, it has taken me some time to recover from 2020. We put it all on the field, right through the January 5th Georgia elections, and I crashed pretty hard. But this morning I woke up and jumped out of bed. I can't wait to get back to work. And we have so much work to do. 

This year we are launching in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York City. Our 501c4, the Project ID Action Fund is endorsing candidates across the country, lobbying for pro-ID legislation in several states, and advocating for the rights of the ID-less during the pandemic (do you know that most states are requiring IDs to get the vaccine?). We have a long list of hard work that we are ready to do, because we have to, we want to, and we can.

I am so grateful to all of you for sticking with us through the last four years, even when it was really, really, really hard. You're still here. And so are we. Let's be brave enough to be the light today, and always. 

Welcome to the new world,
Kat Calvin