Historically Low Voter Turnout Precincts Visited Door-to-Door by Audio Academy Giving Away Voting Guide
By Ben Trefny, Interim Executive Director, KALW
Coming right up on the midterm elections, and KALW’s team is gearing up for live Election Night coverage Tuesday on www.kalw.org and 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. Make sure to vote and to tune in to find out what happens!
In the lead up to that, aside from broadcasting election-related stories, we’ve been visiting historically low voter turnout precincts of San Francisco, Alameda, San Mateo, and Contra Costa Counties. We’ve printed up 6,000 voter information guides, designed by Audio Academy alum Chris Egusa (’20) that volunteers are handing out door to door:
On Friday, 10/28, I went to the Bayview Senior Center, where organizers agreed to hand out about 500 with free bagged lunches to people in need:
Our training director and Audio Academy alum Shereen Adel (’15) went to East Palo Alto and shared a batch with community partner Mike Vista at the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula:
On Saturday, 10/29, current Audio Academy fellow Mary Catherine O’Connor handed hundreds out in one of the Bayview’s precincts. And Sunday, 10/30, Audio Academy mentor Sunni Khalid and I handed out hundreds more in and around Bayview’s Alice Griffith Public Housing.
I’m grateful that we have the opportunity to serve the community in this meaningful way.
I’m also really excited to get our current Audio Academy class engaged with live broadcasting on Election Night. It’s part of the wide variety for training opportunities they get through this program, made possible by the Association of Continuing Education.
Here are some thoughts from current Audio Academy fellow Wendy Reyes:
The experience at KALW’s Audio Academy has been chaotic — in the best way! Being plopped in a newsroom where there are countless stories, ideas, and conversations being had that have the potential to become a project and a story worth telling can be overwhelming. It’s this chaotic environment that is teaching me to narrow my focus and trust my gut. Accessing this new facet of my brain is rapidly becoming the best takeaway from the Audio Academy. Before KALW, I didn’t read and interpret news the way I’m learning to now. The early morning news digests have established a routine and practice of answering the most important questions when presented with new information. I have also been made to feel like what I have to say, where I come from, and what I represent matters to my mentors and others here at KALW. Overall, it’s an intricate process and I’m thankful for the mentorship and guidance.