Today is a big day for MomsRising in Washington state.   The PFL initiative made it through the senate and is in front of the house.  A bunch of MomsRising supporters have headed down to Olympia for a press conference to answer questions and demonstrate the support paid-family leave has in Washington state.

 

Problem is that the event occurs during working hours and many of the folks who support the bill have to work.  Problem: How do you show the scope of support for an issue when people can't make the time to travel to the state capitol in the middle of the work week?   Solution: Get supporters to donate onsies with messages of support to take to Olympia in their stead. 

 

This has been by far my favorite project since getting involved with Momsrising this year.  One week ago in a planning meeting, the problem above was posed to the Momsrising community.  The idea of taking messages on Onsies was concieved and a week later strings of over 300 messaged onsies are hanging in the capitol.

 

Word was sent out over the mailing list, messages and decorated onsies started arriving, a group of volunteers got together at my house to apply designs to blank onsies and these were distributed to another network of volunteers to apply the messages which have been rolling in.  All of this in 7 days.  I hear other state efforts are starting to spin up their own versions as well.

 

The power of organizing through technology is amazing as is the experience of working with people who are passionate about taking care of families.

 

I unfortunately am one of the folks who was unable to get out of work today so my wife and youngest are carrying our family flag to Olympia and will present our message to the lawmakers.  I'll post pictures when I get them.