Not your typical email from us 

Hi there,

We were going to send you a quick little note to end the year and say thanks for all you’ve done as part of the Vote Save America community ([link removed]) .

Then we checked our inbox this morning and saw this email from Aaron B. in Pennsylvania, and with his permission, wanted to share some of what he wrote:

Dear Vote Save America,

About a year and a half ago your efforts sent me on the beginning of a journey that I am still on today and which has changed my life. I'm a recent college graduate living in Pennsylvania, and as a recent graduate my feeling has been that I've finally reached the point in my life where I can decide who I am and what I stand for. I didn't do anything politically during the 2016 elections except post on Facebook. A lot. I can tell myself it was because I was incredibly busy with the work of obtaining my degree in architecture, but largely, it was because I felt I didn't have to. Clinton was going to win and the whole nightmare would be behind us.

When that didn't go exactly as I had expected, I knew that my days of sitting on the sidelines had to be over. I knew I had to do something, but I really had no idea what...

Fast forward a few months later, when you launched "Vote Save America". You taught me that the most impactful thing I could do was to go knock on my neighbors' doors and have conversations with them. The idea frightened me… Even so I resolved to do just one measly three hour shift, and luckily I found one through Vote Save America. Lo and behold, my first canvass didn't actually kill me! The very first door that I knocked on was that of a Vietnam veteran who had been injured in that war and saw his government turn his back on him. He told me that his daughter had become addicted to opioids and that even though he had voted Republican his entire life, those leaders' answer to this problem was to simply move all the people suffering from addiction out of their districts. Problem solved. I learned that day that, whether I was speaking to a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent, just the act of listening to somebody could make such a difference.

In architecture school I was taught to think about huge, systemic issues like climate change and propose architectural solutions. It's paralyzing in a way. You get used to seeing the world from the top down, the way an architect looks at the plans for a building. But through just a little bit of activism, one door in one neighborhood at a time I learned that change didn't have to be big or dramatic to be meaningful.

I started reaching out to friends and acquaintances to try and get them to help me. Together in 2018 we knocked on a few thousand doors. Towards November we were spending every Saturday and Sunday from dawn until dusk...Today, we're shifting that work to gear up for the 2020 election. We're going to go all over Pennsylvania, to the districts that Trump won in 2016 and try to change hearts and minds, to find people who just need the little push that I needed in the summer of 2018 and got from Vote Save America who can become leaders and volunteers in this fight… I know that the darkness of these days can get to us, but it is also true that the darkness has helped many of us to see lights that we might never have even known were there.

Yours in Democracy,

Aaron B.

Aaron and the rest of this community have already made a huge difference. And as we head into 2020, when we’ll all be asked to do more than ever, we also wanted to make sure you understand just how much of an impact you’ve had, joining forces with activists, organizers, and millions of people all over this country who have knocked on doors and made calls and donated and protested and voted – not only to stop a vicious president but to build a better world.

READ THE REPORT ([link removed])
While we can’t predict what will happen next year, what we can do is make sure that each of us does our part to achieve what we all know should happen. It won’t be easy. But one lesson of the last three years, as hard as it’s been, is that it’s easier knowing we’re in this together.

Happy holidays, and see you in 2020 (!)

The Vote Save America team

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