Yarmouth to Martha's Vineyard

On Monday the Cape Cod team took the ferry from Yarmouth to Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard which gave us some nice, relaxing, time to think about the events of the weekend. On Saturday, July 4th we were part of the Hyannis Parade, which provided much fun along with visibility for both the Re-Power America campaign and Clean Power Now. We constructed one 10 foot tall cardboard wind turbine along with another one half that size and strapped them onto the bike trailers. Myself and Lauren walked in front of the bikes with the re power America banner while Jeff and Vickey (with bikes decorated with green streamers and pin wheels) towed the turbines. Courto and Justin followed with Clean Power Now pins and Frisbees for the parade attendees. We were all very pleased with the response from the crowd, everyone seemed to be in support! It was nice to see afterwards dozens of little kids walking around with the Clean Power Now pins on their shirts. I think the parade was extremely successful for creating visibility for the campaign but wish we got better pictures of us doing it!

The next day, Sunday, we had an event appropriately called "rising waters, raising awareness: a business as usual beach party." If we do not change the was we depend on fossil fuels and other toxic practices the sea levels will continue to rise and the beach just might be located in the center of town. With this in mind we staged a beach party event on the Hyannis town green, complete with wind turbines and sea creatures. Although the projections can be scary we did not intend for this event to evoke fear but rather to provide people with the resources and knowledge they may need to effectively make the change we are striving for. In addition to the paper petitions we asked people to participate in a photo petition drive, holding speech bubbles calling upon congress to pass strong climate legislation. In particular, 100% clean electricity in the next decade. The event was fun and laid back and although we would have liked to see more people attend it was still seen as a success on many levels.

We learned a lot during our stay with Lady Barnett in Yarmouth including how much work goes into planning and executing successful events. The weeks have been flying by and now its Thursday and we are in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard. We are having a good time but finding that canvassing in what Jay so appropriately deemed "vacation land" is a much different experience than in communities with year-round residents. Overall people have been fairly receptive but since they do not live here it is difficult to find committed community leaders. We will not let this get us down though and will continue searching for the small minority of people who are residents of this beautiful island.