bake back the white house

Linette and I, and her brother Neal, walked over to the “Bake Back the White House” bake sale on Saturday. Our friends Andy and Patti were there, selling their vegan baked goods, along with about a half-dozen other folks. We picked up a loaf of banana bread and a chocolate cupcake, contributed our $15 to MoveOn.org, and then hung out for about half an hour talking with other folks and watching dogs chasing each other around. It felt good to be doing something… even if that something was just eating sweets, making smalltalk and handing over cash. I consider that a big step up from just sitting here alone in my tattered blogging leotard and cranking out post after post after post about how much I dislike the current administration. At least this involved interacting with other people.

Someone mentioned that everything that was raised in the driveway that day probably would’t equal the amount brought in by a single participant at one of Bush’s $1,500-a-plate fundraising dinners. That very well might be true. I still think that small, community-based things like this are worth doing. Any activity that gets people to take action is important. These bake sales, in that sense, are like gateway drugs. They get people out of their houses, eating cookies, talking with their neighbors about shared political beliefs, and opening their wallets to toss in a few bucks. There’s not much risk involved, but it opens up that door. It’s a brilliant strategy. It gets people to make that first step. Who knows, some of those people might who went to MoveOn bake sales might now be more inclined to go and volunteer for Kerry, or even make a more substantial contribution.

So, while the bake sale itself might not have raised $1,500 dollars in a direct sense, I’d argue that it probably did much more that than. It probalby got close to 100 people out of their homes on an overcast and cold Saturday afternoon to do something about the current state of our country. That, I think, is a lot more powerful than one person having his or her secretary cut a $1,500 check to a political action committee for a ticket to a Bush dinner.

Here are some photos from the event.. If you didn’t make it, don’t worry about it. I’m sure there will be more. And, I’m sure that next time a lot of us who just came to buy and eat on Saturday come back with baked goods to sell.

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BUY LOCAL... or shop at Amazon through this link Banner Initiative Jodi Lynn