Last Wednesday, July 9, voters from in the Champaign-Urbana area made their way to 15th Congressional District Rep. Tim Johnson’s office to present their community collected scrapbook petitions. These creative petitions express concern about the threat global warming poses to Illinois’ environment and way-of-life in the form of hand-written letters, post cards, photographs and video testimonials. Those who participated in the petitioning asked Rep. Johnson to work towards real solutions against global warming in Congress.
“The people of central Illinois understand the threat of global warming and are calling on the leadership in Congress to have a plan to address it, “ said Drew Thomas, Urbana resident and Greenpeace field organizer.
One participant, Lindsay Millett, explains how she believes creative petitions can be more effective than pre-printed ones, “It is not just a collection of names. Johnson can see his constituents’ faces, their handwriting, their words that they’ve chosen to say to him. In fact when I made a delivery last week, a man in the office was like, ‘I wonder how many of our neighbors we’ll recognize in this one.’ So already, people in Johnson’s office are aware that these scrapbooks are from the community. I believe this will have a much stronger effect than pre-printed petitions ever could have had.”
Greenpeace would like to invite more people to come out to Rep. Johnson’s office on 2004 Fox Dr. in Champaign and deliver more petitions through the week of Wednesday, July 23. For more information please contact, Drew, your local Greenpeace organizer.