Center for Change a Northern MI Advocacy Group

Celebration of Civic Engagement: We brought together all spectrums of our community to celebrate local civic engagement. We celebrated the life and service to the community embodied by Sharon H. Kennedy. Sharon's daughters spoke and our State Representative joined us in the presentation of a plaque to commemorate the service and memory of Sharon H. Kennedy. We were able to bring people together to discuss solutions to local issues, putting politics aside, and coming together to make our communities more vibrant.

County Fair Campaign. We brought the Center for Change to multiple County Fairs with educational materials regarding the work we are doing in the community and how we can solve local issues in non-partisan ways. We provided community education on the internet infrastructure dollars. We promoted taking a survey for expanding internet access.

Anatomy of an Election Roadshow. Over the course of a week, we made presentations in seven (7) different communities across Northern Michigan with the goal of providing our neighbors with the vocabulary and knowledge to have conversations about the systems in place that secure our elections. Former East Lansing City Clerk Marie Wicks created and gave the presentation, allowing for robust questions and answers. We educated and empowered our community members to attend the local public accuracy tests. All of our team members learned a lot along the way as well.

Seeing an absence of action in the creation of the Michigan High-Speed Internet (MIHI) Office the previous year, we advocated with the Michigan legislators to fund and staff the MIHI office. This campaign was truly organic as we reached out to government officials, partner organizations, and other local entities to share information regarding how imperative this office would be for future Internet expansion funding. Without such an office, Michigan would not qualify for receiving billions of Federal dollars in internet funding coming available soon. Various other miscellaneous outreach programs were conducted, marketed and executed through out the year.