RURAL ORGANIZING PROJECT
2020 ANNUAL REPORT
FOSTERING STRONG AND HEALTHY GROUPS, BUILDING RURAL LEADERSHIP, DEFENDING HUMAN DIGNITY AND ADVANCING DEMOCRACY FOR ALL
Building Community During a Pandemic
The coronavirus, economic recession and devastating wildfires exposed the gaps in social safety nets that leave rural communities without reliable access to emergency resources, food, housing, healthcare, childcare, internet and more. Rural Oregonians built dozens of mutual aid networks to feed neighbors, share health and safety information and make sure anyone who needs help gets it. In response to requests from our partners around town, ROP’s Community Building Center on Main Street in Cottage Grove turned into a resource sharing hub. We coordinated with dozens of service agencies, school district workers, faith communities and volunteers to make sure families struggling from layoffs and housing shortages, quarantining through COVID-19 and evacuating wildfires could get food boxes, hygiene supplies and hot meals with no questions asked, no limits and no barriers.
Breaking Rural Isolation
Through virtual gatherings, ROP brought together hundreds of rural community leaders and human dignity groups to share strategies, cross-pollinate ideas and support one another. We held our 29th annual Rural Caucus & Strategy Session online and have hosted 17 strategy sessions with 800 participants, ranging in topics from Creating a Culture of Safety & Security (during violent backlash at Black Lives Matter demonstrations across the state) to Rural Mutual Aid & Wildfire Response.
We Ended the Last Jail Contract with ICE in Oregon.
After 3 years of organizing led by detained people, Columbia Gorge organizers, and dozens of other groups acting in solidarity across the state, we built enough people power to end the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contract at the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility (NORCOR), a public jail. Two hunger strikes led by people detained inside NORCOR demanding an end to inhumane treatment, a march, hundreds of solidarity rallies and thousands of neighbor-to-neighbor conversations paved the way for the NORCOR Board to vote unanimously to end the jail’s contract with ICE in August!
Growing the Movement for Black Lives
Rural Oregonians gathered on street corners, in churches, parks and in car caravans to hold vigil for the Black and brown people killed by police. ROP supported longtime and emerging groups to form leadership teams, plan actions and create safety and security plans rooted in our values of community care. Clackamas County organizers focused that newfound energy into banning Confederate flags from school grounds, folks in Union County focused on expanding alternatives to policing and
leaders in Harney County are creating a monument to the first Black ranchers in their community.
From strategy sessions and hundreds of one-on-one conversations with leaders across rural Oregon came the Roadmap to a Thriving Rural Oregon, which outlines the priorities our communities need to move from barely surviving to thriving. The Roadmap connects the dots between organizing happening across our network’s 83 autonomous groups so we
can move together to ensure all rural Oregonians have what we need, including broadband internet, childcare, housing, healthy food, clean water and much more!
Defending Democracy
From neighbor-to-neighbor conversations about the issues to responding to voter intimidation, rural Oregonians have defended democracy in every county at every turn! ROP launched the Defend Democracy initiative to counter disinformation about who can vote and how to vote, to support all voters in safely accessing ballot drop boxes and to deescalate any electionrelated threats and intimidation. The initiative included the Defend Democracy hotline, toolkit and radio public service announcements. We received and responded to hotline calls ranging from overflowing ballot drop sites in Clatsop County to stolen yard signs in Lake County to armed people stopping voters at a ballot drop site in Springfield.
The STAND Election Guide by and for rural Oregonians that shared easy-to-understand information on the ballot measures and how to vote in English and Spanish was distributed statewide through 36,000 paper copies, social media, and more than 19 community radio stations! We broadcast a special election edition of our Rural Roots Rising radio show and podcast to include our ballot measure recommendations, stories of human dignity groups organizing around the elections and helpful public service announcements for stations.
Human dignity groups called thousands of voters to talk about the issues, organized ballot pick-ups and deliveries to drop boxes and set up outside of health clinics to pass out personal protective equipment, register people to vote and hand out STAND Guides! Thanks in large part to rural communities getting out the vote, Oregon passed ground-breaking statewide ballot measures that advance democracy, racial justice, decriminalization, and access to drug treatment.
Inspiring Young Organizers
Our second Rural Organizing Fellowship has brought together a group of 10 rural organizers between 16 and 30 years old who are making change in their communities! This year’s cohort has been convening virtually to build their organizing skills, share strategies and take collective action together around the election, COVID-19 relief and catastrophic wildfires
Rural Roots Rising
We completed our first year-long season of Rural Roots Rising, our monthly podcast and radio show featuring rural organizers telling the stories of how and why they organize to build rural people power! Episodes featured how ordinary rural people have joined together to confront police brutality and systemic racism, built power to get more than 100 asylum seekers released from a federal prison in Yamhill County and forged new connections as more than 600 people celebrated the rich mosaic of cultures in Jefferson County! Listen to Rural Roots Rising on one of our 19 partnered community radio stations across Oregon or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
What is the
RURAL ORGANIZING PROJECT?
26 NEW GROUPS JOINED THE NETWORK THIS YEAR!
ROP member groups take action all year round for human dignity and democracy. Across Oregon, our netowrk of 83 autonomous groups is building power and making change at the local and statewide level.
BAKER
- Baker Community Justice Project
BENTON
- Coast Range Association
- Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
- Disability Equity Center
- Linn-Benton Greens
- Linn-Benton NAACP
- Linn-Benton Rapid Response Team
- Mid-Valley Health Care Advocates
- Mid-Valley Solidarity Coalition
- Race Matters, First Congregational UCC
- Stop the Sweeps
- Street Outreach Response Team
- Veterans For Peace, Linus Pauling Chapter 132
CLACKAMAS
- Bridging Cultures
CLATSOP
- Columbia Pacific Alliance for Social Justice
- Indivisible North Coast Oregon
COLUMBIA
- Columbia County Coalition for Human Dignity
- Vernonia Equality & Racial Justice
COOS
- Human Rights Advocates of Coos County
CROOK
- Central Oregon Peacekeepers
- Latino Community Association
- PFLAG Central Oregon
CURRY
- Indivisible North Curry County
DESCHUTES
- Bend 4 Black Lives Matter
- Bend Equity Project
- Bend Indivisible
- Central Oregon Peacekeepers
- High Desert Peace Kitchen
- Indivisible Sisters
- KPOV 88.9 FM High Desert Community Radio
- Latino Community Association
- Peace and Social Justice Team of First Presbyterian Church
- PFLAG Central Oregon
- Redmond Collective Action
DOUGLAS
- Support for Asylum-Seekers and Immigrants
GILLIAM
- NORCOR Community Resource Coalition
- Rural Voices
GRANT
- Grant County Positive Action
HARNEY
- Rural Alliance for Diversity
HOOD RIVER
- Columbia Gorge Women’s Action Network
- Gorge ICE Resistance
- Hood River Latino Network
- Hood River County Rapid Response Team
- NORCOR Community Resource Coalition
JACKSON
- Peace House
- Truth to Power
JEFFERSON
- High Desert Peace Kitchen
- Jefferson Positive Action Group
- Latino Community Association
JOSEPHINE
- Unitarian Universalists of Grants Pass Social Action Team
LAKE
- Indivisible Lake County
LANE
- Blackberry Pie Society
- Church Women United
- Community Alliance of Lane County
- Deadwood Resists
- Florence Indivisible
- Florence ORganizes
- KSOW 106.7 FM Real Rural Radio
- Springfield-Eugene Showing Up For Racial Justice
- Support for Asylum-Seekers and Immigrants
LINCOLN
- Acompañar
- Coastal Network
- PFLAG of the Oregon Central Coast
LINN
- Albany Peace Seekers
- Linn-Benton Greens
- Linn-Benton NAACP
- Linn Benton Rapid Response Team
- Mid-Valley Solidarity Coalition
MARION
- Silverton Progressives
MORROW
- Oregon Rural Action
- Rural Voices
POLK
- Polk Folks for Human Dignity
- Unidos Club at WOU
SHERMAN
- Rural Voices
TILLAMOOK
- Racial & Social Equity Tillamook
- Tillamook Democracy Project
UMATILLA
- Oregon Rural Action
- Pendleton Community Action Coalition
UNION
- Oregon Rural Action
WALLOWA
- Safe Harbors
WASCO
- Gorge ICE Resistance
- NORCOR Community Resource Coalition
- Protect Oregon’s Progress / The Dalles
- Wasco County Rapid Response Team
WASHINGTON
- Adelante Mujeres
- Western WashCo For Racial Justice
WHEELER
- Rural Voices
YAMHILL
- Progressive Yamhill
- Unidos Bridging Community
Download our annual reports as PDF files: