While in Oakland for the CWA, USW, Sierra Club, Bluegreen Alliance trainings, in September 2017, RI also held its first training open to the community.
While in Oakland we also held our first at-large train-the-trainer, open to anyone in the community. Most of the twenty-four participants came from the Bay area, a few from further afield in California, and three traveled all the way from Ashland, Oregon.
Participants were former, current, and new activists involved in organizations like The Incorruptibles, Equitable Food Initiative, Indivisible, Democratic Socialists of America, the Longshore & Warehouse Union, the National Nurses Union, or no organization at all.
Michael Bingham, one of the Oregonians, said, “The ‘Ashland OR Chapter’ is energized and ready to go to work. It’s wonderful to sit in a room of like-minded folks and get my hope tank filled. I had been running on empty for far too long. “