Volunteers Visit 5,600 Virginia Homes in 2 Weekends

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Lorie Medina
lorie@medinausa.com
214-502-0153

Christina Botteri
christina.k.bo@gmail.com
916-223-2747

Volunteers Visit 5,600 Virginia Homes in 2 Weekends
www.VolunteersforVirginia.com

October 2, 2012 - Volunteers from Texas and Tennessee have spent the last two weekends in Virginia to assist in get-out-the-vote efforts in the critical battleground state.

The effort, part of the independent project Volunteers for Virginia, connected the out-of-state volunteers with their like-minded hosts in Roanoke and Richmond to knock on more than 5,600 doors over two weekends in September.

One volunteer from Texas, Collin County Judge Keith Self, said the door-to-door effort is key.

"Our team of six Texans approached undecided voters identified by the Virginia organizers in the Richmond area. While some had made up their minds, many are still very interested in discussing the issues before they commit to either candidate," Self said. "Texans will make a difference in the Virginia presidential election if we continue to make the effort to go face-to-face with undecided and uncommitted voters. Door-to-door canvassing works."

Volunteers who couldn’t make the 2,000+mile round-trip journey have sent more than 13,500 handwritten postcards to voters in Virginia, encouraging them to vote.

"People across the country see that our economy is in shambles. They see how unsustainable our current fiscal path is," said Lorie Medina, founder of the Frisco Tea Party in Texas and chief strategist for Texas Faith & Freedom Coalition. "More than ever in my lifetime, citizens are reaching across state lines to work in swing states because they see that the futures of their families are at stake."

"When we tell Virginians we talk to on their doorsteps that we've driven more than 900 miles round trip to ask them personally to vote for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, they're clearly impressed by the personal sacrifices we've made to bring that message to them," said Michael Patrick Leahy who has made the trip to Virginia several times from his home in the Nashville, Tennessee area.

The local grassroots group We rVirginia, an organization formed to mobilize the grassroots community in Virginia for the sole purpose of impacting the 2012 general election, is hosting the traveling volunteers.

Cumberland Tea Party Aretie Patterson said the trip to Roanoke was definitely worth it.

"If I needed proof that our trips to Roanoke were making a difference, Dr. [Kim] Peaslee heard it Sunday at the Roanoke IHOP," Patterson said. "A customer was talking to a man at another table. He said his nephew’s name was on a list of undecided voters and that 'these people came 900 miles to talk to my nephew about Romney. Now you tell me, that they don't want him out of office!'"

Volunteers will be focusing on Fairfax County during the weekend of Oct. 5 - 7.

The Volunteers for Virginia Results - September 13-16
Doors Knocked On - 5,600	Literature Handed Out - 12,000
Postcards written - 13,500	Postcards written - Spanish - 88
Texas Volunteers - 15	Tennessee Volunteers - 21

For more information or to participate in Volunteers for Virginia, visit http://volunteersforvirginia.com.

About Volunteers for Virginia: Volunteers for Virginia is a collaborative project between We rVirginia, LLC and Election Day Tea Party, an initiative of the Nationwide Tea Party Coalition, an informal federation of 30 local tea parties from around the country who work in cooperation on national projects.

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