Over 1700 Join Hands Across The Sand in Virginia
It was in March this year that Joe Bouchard, Laura Wood Habr (Croc’s 19th Street Bistro and Virginia Beach’s “green ambassador”), Ari Lawrence (Virginia Chair, Surfrider Foundation), and myself met to talk about doing a Hands Across The Sand in Virginia Beach. We were inspired by the 10,000 Floridians who a month earlier had joined hands forming lines in the sand along 80 beaches to protest offshore drilling in state waters. At that time, Virginia was also under the gun for drilling. Having been fast-tracked through a flawed drilling program, Virginia was poised to be auctioned off to the highest bidder as early as 2012.
Then the BP oil disaster occurred.
Virginia’s one event, originally planned for just the beach off 19th Street, had now stretched to 31st Street. Instead of organizing one beach, we now had five beaches organized in Sandbridge, North End, Ocean View and Buckroe Beach.
So many were inspired to support Hands Across The Sand. Tops among them was Joe Bouchard, who donated over $1,700 which enabled us to purchase Facebook ads and online web ads on the Virginian-Pilot. Upon hearing my presentation on drilling and HANDS, Jane Bethel convinced her union (National Association of Government Employees) to underwrite over 8,000 robo calls in the region. Our own Ivy Main created a YouTube video to promote HANDS. Paul Kregorian donated his services as a pilot with a photographer son to fly along the shoreline to capture the line at the Oceanfront. Laura at Croc’s availed her restaurant for a HANDS fundraiser and before/after HANDS meet ups.
A Herculean amount of work was done by our four other beach organizers. Tops among them was Sandbridge as organized by Jennifer Slatkin. Almost every restaurant had HANDS posters in their storefronts and she even convinced the local fire station there to display info about HANDS on their outdoor digital sign. Eva Winters, our organizer at Buckroe Beach, got her printer to donate printing of posters. Janine Lex, our organizer at North End, canvassed almost the entire upper section of her area. Alex Palmer , our organizer in Ocean View, created a lot of Facebook buzz for his beach.
A half dozen brave souls canvassed for HANDS in 95+ degree temps. Caroline Webber (the mastermind behind the “Tar Balls”, 4 ladies who showed up to HANDS dressed in black) canvassed the lower North End area every evening for two weeks. Angela Visik joined her on one particularly hot evening. Sandbridge was canvassed by some great teens to include Ellen (Joe’s daughter) and her friend Marina, my son Leo and his girlfriend Celia. Jessica Palmer was Jennifer’s right arm in Sandbridge and canvassed the sprawling neighbor of Lago Mar.
The canvassing in North End and Sandbridge paid off. Never in my wildest dreams did I think those two beaches in Virginia Beach’s most conservative area would each yield over 200 participants in HANDS. I thought it quite the miracle that we were organizing these two beach in the first place. Buckroe Beach had 135 participants. Ocean View had 175 participants.
And yes, we did it! We accomplished our goal of getting 1,000 people to join hands along the Virginia Beach Oceanfront! However, we were unfortunately one megaphone from connecting. It’s a weird phenomenon of human nature when folks are told “19th through 31st Streets” which they translate as “19th and 31st Streets” (i.e., not in between). We had a big line starting at 31st heading south. There was a pod at around 25th Street that was undecided but eventually met with the huge line that originated at 19th and also went south as far as 14th. Try as we did to get folks to shuffle south, there just wasn’t enough time. We learned that it takes awhile to direct 1,000 people!
CCAN’s Chelsea Harnish, Environment Virginia’s J.R. Tolbert served as “beach lieutenants” along with Mary Rafferty and Antigone Ambrose. Over two dozen organizations supported HANDS by sending email blasts to their memberships to promote the event. Chelsea and J.R. supported HANDS additionally by canvassing beachgoers over Memorial Day weekend. Pryor from Repower America assisted with some press calls for HANDS. Virginia Organizing Project rounded up a dozen volunteers to help collect signatures on our petition to President Obama. We also enjoyed the strong support of Virginia Beach for Change and Chesapeake for Change, whose director Pat Okerlund helped tremendously in Sandbridge.
I was sure HANDS was going to be extremely successful the Friday night before. We held a volunteer meeting at Croc’s where we gave volunteers their “beach assignments”. We had 13 blocks of beach to cover and were hoping to have 2 volunteers per block. Over three dozen volunteers showed up at Croc’s on Friday and we filled each block with 3 volunteers.
I have been uploading fast and furiously all the many photos, video and press clippings to our Facebook page (http://www.Facebook.com/HandsAcrossTheSandVA) for HANDS. The 3 local reporters for the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) went to either Ocean View or Buckroe. The Daily Press also reported from Buckroe. The Virginian-Pilot did report from the Oceanfront and carried a story on HANDS on the front page of their Sunday paper. Below is a list of all our media hits. Thanks go out to Paul with Journal Home (blog), Jay Ford with AltDaily and Missy Schmidt with Hampton Roads Partnership for their help in promoting HANDS online and Riescha Curran for animated gif ad development.
We’ve been able to capture email addresses for over 2,000 new people via Facebook outreach, petition signatures, advanced tabling, and folks RSVPing via the national HANDS website. It is my feeling that a good number of these new folks may have supported offshore drilling prior to the BP spill and/or are new to environmental activism. Keeping these folks with us will be our new challenge. But we’re up for it!
Next up is getting the Virginia Beach City Council and the Virginia Beach Hotel Motel Association to relax their positions on drilling.
-Eileen Levandoski, Hampton Roads Conservation Coordinator, Virginia Chapter Sierra Club and Virginia State Hands Organizer
Media hits:
http://www.wtkr.com/videobeta/5fcbc2c6-8847-4d93-884d-24b35903ccb5/News/Hands-Across-the-Sand
http://www.wavy.com/dpp/news/local_news/hands-across-the-sands-has-local-reach
http://www.wvec.com/news/Environmentalists-protest-offshore-drilling-97239049.html
http://www.dailypress.com/news/hampton/dp-nws-oil-drilling-protest-20100626,0,4950987.story
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/06/1000-protest-offshore-drilling-virginia-beach
http://www.whsv.com/virginiaap/headlines/96182449.html
Photo credits (starting from the top): Jessica Palmer, Stephanie Himel-Nelson, Paul Krekorian
Make a donation to the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club today!
