Sarah W, Northeast PA

I can’t believe this is it…

Last Saturday we table at NEPA PrideFest in Kingston. On a serious note, it was a really great experience and we got lot of post cards signed for both Sex Ed and Health Care. However, there were some very comical parts too. My favorite was this little five year old girl that just walked up to the edge of our table and just stared at me. Obviously she thought that we had candy or toys to pass out, however; all I had was a huge basket of condoms—definitely not appropriate for a 5 year old! So she just kept staring at me for what felt like an eternity. Finally her mom came over. This little girl looked up at her mom, pointed to the condoms and said "Mommy, what's that?" (Perhaps she thought I was holding out on her and really did have candy?). In response all her mom said is "Honey, those are for adults, and hands her a lollipop." It was great.

Yesterday, Anne came up for her final visit. I cannot believe that it has already been 10 weeks. I am optimistic that the work that we did on Sex Ed and Healthcare will be effective.

I also want to say ‘Thank you’ to Anne, Sara and the other staff members that helped make this internship possible. And I want to say “Hey” to the other interns, even though we weren’t all together; we’re working together for the same thing! I wish everyone the best of luck in everything they do!

Sarah P, Southeast PA

As we reach the end of our internship, our focus has made an exciting shift to include Health Care Reform as well as sexuality education. Taking on this new campaign has meant doubling our efforts: now we do two phone banks a week, one for sex ed and one for health care reform, and we have divided up our canvassing and tabling as well. HCR calls two weeks ago to "spank" legislators who had let us down were tough, while calls last week to urge people to attend town hall meetings went a little better, despite problems in Southeastern PA with Activate. At the Locust Street Center in Philadelphia we have also been doing other miscellaneous health care reform activities, such as making and decorating boxes for people in our health centers to put HCR postcards into. The other interns and I enjoyed about two hours of arts and crafts with this activity, cutting up information and images and other PP paraphernalia to decorate the boxes. We are planning on a HCR visibility event this coming Thursday, after the phone bank. However, sex ed is still central to our internship. We've continued to phone bank determinedly: during the latest phone bank I reached a woman who told me her daughter was in 4th grade so promptly that I thought this meant she was going to yell at me, but as it turns out she wanted her daughter to start learning sex ed as soon as possible.

For our latest canvass in Barbara McIlvaine-Smith's district we were rained out but were able to call through all of our walk sheets, which felt great. One woman who signed a postcard for me before the rain told me that she is a practicing minister with 5 kids who wants to come be a patient escort for us, as the protestors at the West Chester office are so vocal and aggressive. She said that she wanted the people who come to protest in the name of religion to see a religious person on the other side of the issue. Clarissa and I have also gotten several people who've selected the "make a contribution" box on their sex ed postcards. The support is exhilarating.

Tomorrow is the last late night phone bank, and I am definitely geared up for it and for the last week of the internship in general. It will be sad to have it end, but I feel like I've learned so much and have really developed my passions to extend to other areas of my life. I know that I will always care about and do what I can for sex ed and for health care reform, and I'm so grateful to Planned Parenthood and this internship for that!

Gemma, Northest PA

Sarah W and I are going into the last week of our internship in Northeastern PA. This summer went by so fast! We’re both really excited to be tabling NEPA Pridefest this Sunday. We haven’t been able to table an event yet, so I think this is going to be a great experience. We’ve still been having some challenges with our ability to go out and canvass (namely the weather). It’s been so frustrating to go to a turf and knock on doors for about an hour and then have it start raining. Other than that, Sarah and I have had fun and it has definitely been a great experience. I will miss having conversations at someone’s door about comprehensive sex ed and hearing a person’s story about why they support the issue. It’s really exciting to know that there are so many supporters out there and that people appreciate and are positively affected by the work Planned Parenthood does. It has been a challenging and very rewarding experience.

Juliana, Southeast PA

Everyone likes house parties…so what could be better than a SEX ED house party? The Southeast Interns hosted one at Haverford College last week. We publicized it through Facebook, had to reschedule once because of thunderstorms (what else is new?) but ended up having a very fun and successful evening! We managed to obtain over 25 signatures on our petitions for comprehensive sex ed. We also had a bunch of activities. First was a piñata filled with candy and condoms, but it was hit open on the second try – unfortunately, the participant in question was a baseball player. We also played Sex Ed Quizzo to educate guests about our political work in Pennsylvania, and we offered “Women’s Health Matters” T-shirts as prizes! Two of our supervisors, Alisa and Audrey, surprised us by showing up – needless to say, they won the Quizzo game, but graciously agreed to relinquish their trophies. Finally, we had a condom blowing-up contest – whoever could fill a condom with the most air and tie it off would win. However, the contest quickly converted into a game of condom volleyball. The Southeast interns also showed off our cooking skills – we made homemade spicy bean dip, hummus, salsa, and lemonade. All in all, it was a great way to involve our friends in the work we’ve been doing all summer – we highly suggest hosting one in your area!

Rachel, Western PA

Last week, Anna and I trekked to Westmoreland County to canvass in the towns of Mt. Pleasant and Ligonier. We are spoiled, as we are interning at an urban affiliate, mostly covering turf that lies less than 10 miles from the office, with semi-reliable public transportation to get us there. So a distant, more rural canvass was a bit of a shock to our city-scuffed shoes. After a terribly fraught journey to our meeting point for the Mt. Pleasant canvass, we decided that the pouring rain was not going to let up, and so our first taste of canvassing, Westmoreland-style, came the next day, in the small quaint town of Ligonier.

I had hoped that we would find more people at home than we typically do in Pittsburgh. It was a chilly day, threatening rain, and I reasoned that in a small town like Ligonier, there would be… well, less to entice people to leave their homes on a Saturday afternoon. I was wrong; the percentage of knocks that went unanswered was no less than in our many Pittsburgh canvasses. For the people we did speak to, however, there was an important difference.

Pennsylvania has no statewide guidelines for the teaching of sex ed (hence this internship) and from what I gathered, the education young people receive at schools in Ligonier is spotty at best. Mothers could break out with personal stories about the inadequacy of their children’s’ education. On the other hand, Pittsburgh public schools are required to provide comprehensive sex education, and try as we might, this fact stole the urgency from our conversations. Women in Pittsburgh would listen to my story, but then say “Well, my kids already get good sex ed, so I’m not interested,” or “I’m happy with the status quo in Pittsburgh, so I won’t sign.” Woman after woman produced something along these lines: “My kids are out of school,” “I don’t have kids,” “I teach my kids about sex myself.”

I try not to get frustrated, but I sometimes want to interrupt with “But what about all the other kids in Pennsylvania?” What about those kids stuck in a high school much like my own, that in lieu of a real sex education program, offers gruesome pictures of advanced STDs and a few quips about abstinence? I have encountered hardly any hostility towards my message, little denial of the benefits of comprehensive sex ed. But for some people, their thinking stops there, at their doorstep, at the boundaries of their school district. I wish I could inspire everyone with the passion I heard from those Ligonier women, somehow make them see that elsewhere in the state, children just like their own are being denied the education they need and deserve. But I guess that’s the point.

Anna D, Western PA

In the past seven weeks, I have learned a lot about how to communicate effectively and openly with people about politically charged issues like sex education and health care reform. Canvassing has been most interesting, mainly because of the interactions I have with our targets, but also because being on foot for hours at a time in concentrated sections of the Pittsburgh area gives me a new perspective on my hometown. It’s amazing the difference a few miles makes when it comes to the overall disposition of people towards Planned Parenthood.

Because Rachel and I have been mainly canvassing on Fridays and Saturdays, it is especially striking when we are in a rural or suburban area one day and a city neighborhood the next. Overall, we tend to get more positive responses from people closer to the city, and more "not home’s/refusals" from suburban and rural folks (of course there are exceptions). Personally, I most enjoy canvassing in what are stereotypically viewed as “depressed” or “bad” areas of town. My interactions in such areas have been for the most part with very supportive and kind people who seem genuinely interested in helping to get our bills passed. One of my favorite memories from one such canvass is this: after a really enthusiastic young woman signed my petition, we talked for several minutes about her views on the issues and the importance of sex education. She mentioned her toddler daughter several times, and said that as a mother she was especially grateful for the resources Planned Parenthood provides for young people. She even gave me a bottle of water as I was leaving. After I had walked several blocks, I stopped on a street corner to look at my map. A man came up to me and tapped me on the shoulder, asking “Are you Anna?” When I said I was indeed, and asked what I could do for him, he told me that his wife had ordered him to chase me down so that he could sign my petition too!

I really enjoy the work that I have been doing, both because I am excited to be working for a cause I believe in so strongly, and also because it can be so much fun! I have met so many great people and had such engaging conversations; my internship with Planned Parenthood of Western PA has truly made this summer a memorable and very rewarding experience.

Anna M, Southeast PA

Madeline, Juliana, and I just returned from our second trip to Washington D.C. this summer. After an 8 AM early morning train on Wednesday, we squished 8 people into a cab and made our way to L'Enfant Plaza hotel - the site of the conference. We were all extremely tired, but check-in wasn't for another five hours so we decided to explore the hotel a little before heading to the opening ceremony (where we met Cecile Richards!).

After that we shuffled to our respective break-out sessions on everything from the legislative process to using the media to your advantage. Juliana and I attended 'Campaigning from A to Z,' where by far the most useful information was the advice on how to start a Vox chapter at our school. It was an exhausting day of traveling and absorbing information so I didn't feel too lame when I called it a night and went to sleep at 10.

The next day was a whirlwind of Senatorial and Congressional lobby visits regarding community providers' roles in the new HealthCare Reform bill. Most staff that we met were encouraging yet realistic. They agreed that it would be an uphill battle when the issue of "federally funded" abortion emerged. Currently about 80% of insurance providers cover abortion procedures, and we just hope that after healthcare reform women aren't worse off than they are now.

On Friday, Madeline, Juliana, and I skipped out on the morning plenary session, hopped on the subway and tried to go get tickets to the Sotomayor hearings. Unfortunately we were one day too late, and all that was left of the long lines and ticket booth was a sad looking folded up white tent. Disappointed, we breezed through the senate buildings, hoping to run into Al Franken on our way back to the hotel.

The last three days offered an insightful look into the frustrating and long process of creating and passing a bill. When a piece of legislation is over 1,000 pages (as the Healthcare reform bill is) it's almost impossible for laymen/citizens to understand. And this is why grassroots organizing is so vital. Communities and individuals have to truly understand the impact that Washington DC has - and the impact that they have on Washington DC. It's easy to get caught up and discouraged by the political jargon, but it's important not to.