Our Cambridge chapter took a meaningful step in Fall 2025 by hosting an in-person potluck for our active volunteers. Some seasoned volunteers mentioned that before COVID, our chapter had community events at the library. Others urged us to meet in person more often because some members join Mothers Out Front for the community. Zoom is convenient, but every once in a while, it’s good to reconnect in person. So we decided to hold an in-person event at the Cambridge Public Library on March 15!
Purpose of the Event
- Reconnect with our volunteers.
- Recruit new volunteers. We decided to invite everyone on our Cambridge mailing list (1,000 people!)
- Take action together. We heard people love action calls because they feel they are doing something concrete for the climate.
- Offer an opportunity for meaningful engagement and give participants a sense of self-efficacy in the climate movement.
How We Did It
Formed a small committee and picked a regular meeting time
The committee included members of our growth and engagement team, our communications leader, and the co-coordinators. We started meeting in February and blocked time in our calendars for weekly check-ins.
Brainstormed on the format
We knew for sure that we wanted to give people a chance to connect with each other and have conversations, rather than looking at a PowerPoint, which felt boring and not very engaging. We preferred something more interactive and informal.
Here’s what we considered:
- Having an ice breaker activity
- Hosting small presentations by our sub-teams to recruit volunteers (Cambridge has a Public Officials team, a Growth and Engagement team, a Communications team, and an Environmental Justice team)
- Conducting mini 1:1s where we paired new people with active volunteers
- “Speed dating,” where new volunteers would connect briefly with our teams and rotate to the next one.
Choose an action
We wanted new and active volunteers to feel that their time with us was impactful. The House just passed an improved version of the energy bill in January, so we thought the action could involve thanking our representatives. We know that expressing gratitude is important to strengthen the relationship with our representatives (we always reach out to them with an “ask”, this time we would just say “thank you”). We also knew that art would allow us to be creative together and bring a joyful experience to active and new volunteers. So we asked our members Judy and Anne to come up with an artistic idea to go with the cards. They proposed beautiful paper flowers on pipe cleaner stems.
Planned logistics and outreach
We offered snacks and encouraged parents to bring their children to make the event as inclusive as possible.
For outreach we:
- Sent two eblasts to our entire chapter
- Followed up with personalized emails to our active volunteers (70 people)
- Posted flyers at the libraries and in other locations around Cambridge
- Invited students and faculty from local university research programs on climate
- Reached out to local organizations that we normally partner with (like the YWCA)
- Engaged a high school student who needed community service hours (this is a good way to expand outreach to students)
Prepared materials
- Event page on Every Action, so we could track RSVPs
- Flyer to be used for eblasts and promotion on Instagram and Facebook.
- Descriptions of available volunteer jobs
- An agenda
How it Went
We started by asking everyone to introduce themselves, share what they were hoping to get out of the meeting, and share their favorite part of Spring (an easy icebreaker). Leaders from our Public Officials and Growth and Engagement teams explained the action and its importance, and offered a demonstration on making the paper flowers.
The group joined smaller tables to work on the flowers and cards. We made one gratitude card per representative and attached a few of our paper flowers to each one. We also prepared sheets with message ideas to make it easy for participants.
We had planned to have mini 1:1s, but we skipped that part because making the cards and the flowers took longer than we thought, and people were having good conversations. There was a positive atmosphere, people were talking and enjoying snacks, so we favored letting them connect rather than having 1:1s.
Note: Being flexible and adapting to the flow of the event was a good idea!
We even received a surprise visit from two of our state reps, Rep. Decker and Rep. Owens, and Cambridge Mayor Siddiqui. Their visit was a nice reminder to all of us that our work is respected. It also highlighted the strong relationships we have with our reps and the importance of cultivating them.
The Follow-Up
After the event, participants received a follow-up email where we thanked them and invited them to sign up for the next welcome call. We also offered 1:1s, which had a great outcome. Four people registered for 1:1s, and three of them joined our leadership team!
The next step was to hand-deliver the cards and flowers to our representatives.
Delivering the Cards and Flowers
On April 8, a small delegation from MOF Cambridge visited the State House to deliver cards to all six of our reps (Connolly, Decker, Moran, Owens, Rogers, Ryan). Current members Diana and I were joined by new members Mari and Rosalba.
We had good conversations with most of our reps and their aides. This was a great opportunity for our new members to train on advocacy and to bring the action full circle following the library event. After our deliveries, we shared photos on Instagram and tagged our representatives. We also followed up with Moran, Ryan, and Rogers (reps we are still getting to know) by sending thank you notes, meeting requests, and photos from our visit. Rep. Ryan responded, offering to meet with us at the end of August. A wonderful result from our day of action.
Main Takeaways
- Connecting in person is always good!
- Taking action is important because it highlights what we do and makes volunteers feel their time is impactful.
- Adding art and creativity gave us a space for joy and good conversations.
- Being flexible and prioritizing people connecting instead of trying to do all the things on our agenda was a great idea because people had more time to get to know each other.
- Delivering the cards at the State House was a nice way to close the circle and offered another opportunity to activate our volunteers.
- Our reps appreciated being thanked; it was good to be able to express our gratitude without asking for something.
- The gratitude card was an important opening for reps that we are not too close with and we got to connect with a rep that we didn’t have a relationship with. This open house is a gift that keeps on giving!