“Well this is going great,” said my inner monologue multiple times throughout the day.
The day had already started off on a sour note, having spent 15 minutes trying to find parking. The sourness was briefly shaken off while we were given a tour of the Capitol by Genesis.
I spent a lot of time admiring the architecture and managed to get a few good pictures of the highlights. After getting an AP Government review on how a bill becomes a law, it was time for lunch. Luckily I had the Caesar salad; the Tri-Tip sandwiches my fellow LIFTs ate apparently had a lot left to be desired.
After this came the best part of the day, getting to meet the politicians from our districts and speak our part on Rising Sun’s behalf. Or so it was supposed to be like. We arrived at the first politician’s office, to find that he was otherwise occupied. Instead, we spoke with their Policy Analyst. It was still interesting to actually be sitting in the office of one of the state Senators, but I hoped that in the next office we went to we’d get to meet the intended person. Sadly, I was wrong. Despite our breakneck pace as we raced up and down flights of stairs, we never seemed to catch any of the politicians we had intended to see. While the legislative assistants we spoke to were kind and taking several notes, they weren’t able to engage us in what we had to say. There was a lot of general affirmative words, “Oh interesting, I see, wow that’s great, etc.” but not a ton of specific answers or comments. If we hadn’t met Assembly Member Grayson, the day would’ve been a bust. Assembly Member Grayson was the only scheduled person that we met that day and we were all grateful that he spoke with us.
The difference between talking to a legislative assistant and an Assembly Member was immediately apparent. Assembly Member Grayson had several comments about what was going on in the communities he represented and suggested ways to make our voices heard in our local communities. He was so knowledgeable of the issues his communities were facing and addressed what he was doing to currently help them.
It occurred to me then that all the people we hadn’t met that day must at least be this knowledgeable of their respective districts and that gave me a different view on the day. We didn’t get to speak with anyone because they were all busy doing things to help the people of their community. It’s not that they didn’t want to speak to the LIFTs from Rising Sun that day, it’s that they were already talking to other people to help benefit their communities.
I guess the lesson learned here is you may run around the Capitol in 93-degree heat and meet only one of the people you intended, but you’ll know that the people you were meant to meet will be working hard on trying to improve the community. And at the end of the day, that’s pretty important
Written by: Jared Long, CYES LIFT, serving the City of Richmond
