Winter 2020

NORTHERN LIGHT - I remember when….

Written by John Anderson

When I was a new organizer at ACORN, meetings and staff training were often held at nunneries in the USA. The first one I attended was mid-level training, held outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mid-level training was for organizers who had been on the job for about a year, had completed an organizing drive, and had been meeting standards in member sign-ups. 

With baggy pants and brimming with youthful enthusiasm, I got off the plane in Albuquerque and was met by none other than Craig Robbins at the baggage carousel. Craig, the Northeast Field Director at the time, arranged a cab ride for me and advanced-level trainee Ben Hannah from Harrisburg, PA, to the nunnery.

I don’t remember the exact number of people in my cohort, but there must have been between 50 and 75 organizers from across the United States and Toronto. Many of the organizers I never saw again. They joined the ranks of thousands of others who worked for ACORN for a short period of time—but at least they completed an organizing drive! Many of the other attendees I do remember well.

Lisa Williams was there, an organizer from Flint, Michigan, who was hilarious, passionate, and dedicated. It’s great to follow her online and see her activism fighting for clean water and against gun violence to this day.

Kris Harsh was there too. We bonded quickly at these meetings, both intensely committed to ACORN and organizing, as well as making the most of our off-time. It must have been going on twenty years ago, because he’s now a Cleveland City Councilor—time has polished out some of the rough edges we both had!

I remember Chris, Ben, Lisa, and others organizing the troops to take the short walk from the nunnery to the banks of the Rio Grande, where we stayed up into the wee hours of the night talking, laughing, debating, and sharing our passion for the work. There is absolutely no other place we could have worked where anything like that could happen.

ACORN Canada’s Head Organizer, Judy Duncan, and I are now preparing for our version of mid-level training, which comes up later this month north of Toronto in cottage country. It's smaller, involves all the staff, and the standards for attending are lower—you don’t have to work at ACORN for a year to attend. One of the hardest parts about the downfall of ACORN in the United States for us was maintaining the high standards that were in place for new field organizers. At the start of my mid-level training, we all had to introduce ourselves by stating our name, city, and the highest monthly member stat we had achieved. I stood up and said, “John Anderson—Toronto—21.” No one stood up and listed anything under 15.

By the time of my advanced training, year two training, I was good friends with many of my peers from around the USA. The meeting was held in the mountains just outside of Los Angeles at what I can best describe as a dude ranch. I had been on staff for a year and a half and was preparing to move to Ottawa to get our new office off the ground, and this was my first opportunity to really meet the Chief Organizer, Wade Rathke.

At the start of the meeting, Wade gave us copies of "Money Matters," a chapter of a book he was writing, and asked us to read it, as it would be a topic of conversation for the following two days. The fact that Wade wouldn’t give a new organizer his time for two years was offset by him spending two full days with us once we had proved ourselves, talking in depth about organizing and building power in ways none of us had considered before.

There were about 15 of us at the meeting, which means that out of all the hiring ACORN did in 2004—with 80 or so offices striving to grow—only 15 of the organizers became fully trained. We were a precious resource for the organization, and Wade understood that. Developing organizers is much like developing leaders from the membership: more doors lead to more members, more members lead to more quality leaders. Similarly, the more new hires you train, the more organizers you end up with who can truly build the organization. None of this happens by chance. You have to put in the time, and staff meetings and training are crucial to making it all work.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the ACORN International meetings. The first was in the Dominican Republic in 2009 or 2010, and more recently with the vibrant, keen, bountiful, and youthful group in England. I regret missing a couple of these due to family matters, but I’m keenly awaiting the trip to Heerlen in the south of the Netherlands, where a new ACORN operation is set to launch. Flights are booked, and we’ve got two newcomers coming along with us: Alejandra Ruiz, the newly elected president of ACORN Canada, and my older brother Elliott, who has been working as the ACORN international researcher for the last half year or so on a part-time basis.

At the upcoming meetings and training sessions, we are going to see many new organizers that we won’t see again, just as we are going to meet others for the first time who will become lasting, indelible parts of our organization. It’s all just another part of ACORN’s amazingly successful community organizing model.

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