Neighborhood Action Teams: Joining Together to Protect What’s Good About Life
Neighborhood Action Teams help build community while building friendships.
by Mark Stover, Second Vice Chair
Have you heard folks talking about getting Neighborhood Action Teams (NAT) started around the county? Maybe at one of the recent monthly membership meetings? Let me tell you about the NAT running in Columbus. I hope you’ll want to get something started near you.
First, a NAT is primarily a group of neighbors who want to take action to protect democracy, support local non-profits, connect with the community, identify issues of concern, and generally work to make Columbia County a nicer place to live and work one neighborhood at a time. We work under the guidance of the Democratic Party of WI.
We call our group Progressive Columbus. In election season we canvass, make phone calls, send postcards, inform voters, and connect to get out the vote. We’ve sponsored training and events to help our members learn to use tools like Reach, Mobilize, and MiniVan to help us get Democratic voters to the polls.
Our group is about more than elections, though. Most members really enjoy the good conversations and getting together with like-minded people to focus on Columbus. Here are some examples of what we’ve done:
Last summer we supported the first ever Pride rally in Columbus - Pride in the Park. That’s JoEllen and Toni in the picture at our booth.
We drew in more community members through our Pizza in the Park event during the summer.
We hosted a food drive to benefit the Columbus Fall River food pantry.
In November and December, we partnered with a local non-profit that helps support families with food insecurity during times when school is not in session. We donated food, helped with the assembly of food boxes, and then with distribution of the food.
In February, we’ll host a community event in partnership with the Wisconsin Coalition for Fair Maps to educate our community and support drawing election district maps that fairly represent the people.
If you think a neighborhood action team would be fun (and doing good in town is fun) to have where you live, feel welcome to reach out to JoEllen Pauls cbusdems@gmail.com or Mark Stover ma1959sto@gmail.com to learn more.