As we start off with the new year, we wanted to reflect back on 2020. As with many organizations and individuals, 2020 was an unexpected journey, met with many challenges, but also accomplishments. Throughout the year, it was evident that Project by Project’s national campaign theme, Asian Americans and Civic and Political Empowerment, was more crucial than ever. At Project by Project (PbP) we raise awareness on the campaign theme by educating the community on issues specific to the needs and experiences of the Asian American community. The Los Angeles chapter selected the Pilipino Workers Center (PWC) as this year’s beneficiary partner and, through the partnership, helped mobilize the community. We wanted to highlight some of our 2020 outreach efforts and collaborations with PWC on our campaign: 

2020 Census 📝 - We kicked off the year with a focus on the 2020 Census. Three members of our chapter became LA City’s Census Goodwill Ambassadors to help educate and encourage our community to complete the Census and why it is important in hard-to-count areas and the Asian American community. Our marketing team also launched a “fast facts” series on social media to raise awareness about the Census. 

Filipino Voter Empowerment Project (FVEP) 💪- As we approached the election season, we collaborated with PWC to become their FVEP Social Media Ambassadors. As ambassadors, we attended workshops facilitated by PWC, which included: History of Voting Rights, Story Telling, “Sala Talks,” and Voting 101. Additionally 40 ambassadors participated in the Voting is a Beautiful Community Effort Campaign Video (check it out if you haven’t yet!). PbP also assisted PWC in organizing the 2020 Ballot Initiative Town Hall event, where we discussed the impact of several key statewide propositions The town hall garnered more than 1,000 views on PWC’s Facebook live. 

Text Banking 📱 -The partnership with PWC provided an opportunity for our Steering Committee members to engage with the community through text banking! For many members, this was their first time organizing and text banking. With PWC, 34 of our members completed three text banking sessions, including one for Census outreach and two for Proposition 15 and Get Out The Vote. PWC’s census outreach text banking sessions occurred over the months of July and September where they sent 72,719 texts across LA county targeting the Filipino and Filipino American community with an engagement rate of 11%. For Proposition 15 outreach, our team with PWC sent 35,000 text messages! The campaign targeted the 18-29 demographic across CA and received an engagement rate of 8%. We would also like to thank Howlin’ Rays for donating meals to our PbP and PWC volunteers in this effort (see photo below). 

Educated Voters 🗳- Inspired and equipped with the resources from PWC’s “Sala Talks” workshop, the Los Angeles and San Francisco Chapters came together to participate in our PbP Boba Ballot Talks series. These internal discussions were facilitated by our current and past Steering Committee members who researched and led a dialogue on each statewide proposition. Additionally, our marketing team launched a social media campaign providing facts about each proposition and assisted PWC with designing their voter guide.

Advocacy ⚖ - We conclude the year with an internal workshop hosted by local activist and minister Diane Ujiiye. Throughout 2020, Diane facilitated two workshops including: Cultural Considerations; and Advocacy, Activism and Organizing. Although the elections are now over, there is still work to be done! Our members learned the importance and methods of continually organizing and advocating as part of our mission and vision to empower the Asian American community. 

Fundraising -  Our Steering Committee also led a fundraiser to provide a charitable contribution in the amount of $8,000 to PWC to sustain and continue their work with the Filipino Voter Empowerment Program and their core mission in securing the dignity and safety of the Pilipinx community and domestic worker industry in Southern California.

As we begin 2021, we would like to thank PWC for their year-long support in working with us on our campaign theme! We also could not have accomplished so much without our steering committee members.