Newsletter 12/23/2021

CCDemClub NEWSLETTER #250, 12/23/2021

CONTENTS

Note from the President
New “Moving Forward” Podcast (NEW)
Upcoming Club Meetings
* None set, stay tuned. Probably in February via Zoom.
EVENTS
* Friday, January 7, 7:30pm: Jimmy Carter documentary at the Carroll Arts Center
* Wednesday, January 12: Ashwani Jain Meet-and-Greet
RESOURCES
About the Club
About the Newsletter
Standard Links

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Note from the President

Dear friends,

Thanks to all of you who attended the CC Democrats’ Holiday Shop Local Event on Saturday, December 4th! Your participation helped to make it such a great event. Here are some photos from the event – https://ccdems.com/gallery/. Thanks to CCDCC First Vice Chair Mitch Edelman for being the event photographer.

Thanks to Mike McMullin, president of the Carroll County Chamber of Commerce, and Westminster Mayor Dr. Mona Becker for helping kick off the event at King Park. Thanks to Rare Opportunity Bakehouse for the wonderful catered lunch and a special thanks to Rudolph Girls Bookstore for donating a bookbag full of “banned: books for our raffle.

We were delighted that Wes Moore, 2022 MD gubernatorial candidate, stopped by and spoke at the kick-off and then spent the day in Westminster shopping at and visiting Main St. businesses.

We are grateful to all our great Main St. Westminster businesses for being so welcoming. Please be sure to shop local – not only this holiday season – but as much as you can all year round.

Take care and stay well.

Kate Sanner, President of the CC Democratic Club


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New “Moving Forward” Podcast (NEW)Kate Sanner has posted a new “Moving Forward” podcast. The guest is Tori Nefflen of End Medical Debt Maryland.
Listen to the podcast at:
https://moving-forward.libsyn.com/a-conversation-with-tori-nefflen?tdest_id=795785&fbclid=IwAR0lNs4McVgP_hl2buhkxGhUTWqRs-3JZmYPNffqrlymkhN_AoU42X50Qd0
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Upcoming Club Meetings

* None set, stay tuned. Probably in February via Zoom.—————————————————————————————————EVENTS

* Friday, January 7, 7:30pm: Jimmy Carter documentary at the Carroll Arts Center

After the Holidays, the Carroll County Democratic Central Committee (CCDC) will sponsor a documentary film at the Carroll Arts Center on Friday, January 7th at 7:30 pm (matinee at 1pm), Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President.  Get your tickets now for this fun event:
https://carrollcountyartscouncil.org/event/jimmy-carter/2022-01-07/2/

 
* Wednesday, December 12: Ashwani Jain Meet-and-Greet

Gubernatorial candidate Ashwani Jain will hold mobile office hours in Carroll County the 12th of every month. This is a good chance to meet the candidate and share your input with him.
– At Millard Cooper Park (Sykesville), off Cooper Drive, 10-11 a.m.
– At Cape Horn Park (Hampstead), off Cape Horn Road, 3-4 p.m.—————————————————————————————————-
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RESOURCES
 
End Medical Debt Maryland
End Medical Debt Maryland is a statewide coalition of labor unions, civil rights groups, political organizations, and other groups working together with community members to pass comprehensive medical billing reform, educate Marylanders on their rights as patients, and eliminate barriers to healthcare.
Earlier this year, EMDMaryland passed the Medical Debt Protection Act in the Maryland General Assembly. This legislation granted Maryland patients new protections against some of the most harmful hospital debt collection practices, but there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure all patients are treated with the care and dignity they deserve.
Americans are facing a medical debt crisis — right now, medical bills are the largest source of debt in collections and the leading cause of bankruptcy in the country. Meanwhile, Maryland’s “nonprofit” hospitals continue to sue their own patients over unpaid medical bills, regularly for low-sum debts of under $250. For Marylanders already struggling to make ends meet, these lawsuits are financially and emotionally devastating.
For this reason, EMDMaryland is currently focused on community outreach work. We’re hosting medical debt clinics, canvasses, and educational town halls across the state to share resources and talk with Marylanders about their rights as patients and the best course of action to take if (or when) medical debt starts to pile up.
We’d be thrilled to have you join us! You can sign on to express your support for EMDMaryland’s work and receive occasional email updates from the coalition at Join the End Medical Debt Coalition (Individual) – Action Network (actionnetwork.org/forms/join-the-end-medical-debt-coalition-individual).
Interested in getting involved with EMDMaryland or participating in community outreach efforts? Please reach out to Tori Nefflen at tori…@gmail.com.
Swing Left 
Launched in January of 2017, “Swing Left is building a lasting culture of grassroots participation in winning elections for the Left by making it as easy as possible for anyone to have maximum impact on the elections that determine the balance of power in our country.
When you sign up with Swing Left, you’ll receive updates about ways to take impactful
action:
– Join a Swing Left Group
– Join the Immediate Impact Team to take action when it matters most
– Write letters to voters with Vote Forward
– Donate to candidates in the closest races
– Invest in democracy with Blueprint”
Find them online at https://swingleft.org
Vote Forward 
“Vote Forward is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. Our mission is to empower grassroots volunteers to encourage their fellow citizens in underrepresented communities to vote. We build tools to facilitate communications between Americans to help strengthen our democracy.
The project began as an experiment conducted by Scott Forman in Alabama in 2017. Encouraged by the success of that test, Scott and a small group of friends and fellow Opower alumni built the first version of this platform to empower volunteers to take easy and effective action.”
Find them online at: https://votefwd.org
Allies for Democracy 
“ALLIES FOR DEMOCRACY, previously known as Allies for PA 2020 and sponsor of the Democracy Dialers campaign (democracydialers.wordpress.com/home/), is a grassroots group based in Baltimore County, Maryland, working to build the blue wave since 2018. Questions or comments? Reach us at alliesfordemocracy or ask to join our Google group, Allies for Democracy.”
We were fortunate to have Cindy Sheffield of Allies for Democracy speak to our Club a few months ago.
Postcards to Voters (PTV)
If you would like to get involved in getting Democrats elected but can’t see yourself doing phone-baking or door-to-door canvassing, then postcard writing may be for you. Writing postcards to voters is one of the best ways to reach out to voters around the country about their local elections or to sign up for vote by mail. There are elections going on right now (with many more to come next year) and you can be part of getting Democrats elected by writing friendly, handwritten postcards. As a volunteer postcard writer, you will provide the postcards, stamps, and time, PTV will provide what to write, thorough instructions, and addresses of voters.
To learn more about becoming an authorized writer, go to www.postcardstovoters.org.
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Grassroots Activist Groups and Nationwide Activist Groups 
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This information has been moved to https://ccdems.com/resources/
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About the Club
We work to promote Democratic ideals and candidates. We also present speakers on topics of interest to voters at our meetings. We’re based in Westminster. Our Our email address is ccdem…@gmail.com
Meeting information: https://ccdems.com/events/
Officers and other club information: https://ccdems.com/clubs/
The newsletter will always have the LATEST information on upcoming meetings.
The meeting minutes are posted in our Google Group folder:
We are now in the 2021-2022 club year (club years run May-May).
We now have 62 paid members, in 43 memberships,
with 18 NEW/FIRST-TIME MEMBERS, including family memberships!
Our newest member is Alison King – welcome aboard!
(We even have FOUR paid members for NEXT year, 2022-23.)
To join by check OR PayPal:  https://ccdems.com/dues/
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About the Newsletter
We send out a weekly newsletter listing all the news and upcoming events for the next month or so, emphasizing the newly-added or updated events.  NEW and UPDATED items are marked and highlighted. For information on joining the club, see “About the Club” at the end of the newsletter. Any problems, or to submit items for the newsletter, email wils…@gmail.com. For new items, include a URL if possible.
As always, you can also go to https://ccdems.com/events at any time to see the full calendar and details.
The newsletter was first published on February 25, 2017. The CCDemClub newsletter archives can be found at https://ccdems.com/newsletter-archive/
Archived links are at https://ccdems.com/archived-links
– Mark
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Standard Links
Jamie Raskin:  Contact his district staff at 301-354-1000 if you need any assistance.
Moving Forward Podcast: http://moving-forward.libsyn.com , with host Kate Sanner.
To get on the  Carroll County Democratic Central Committee’s mailing list, email Tom Scanlan at trsc…@gmail.com .
To give DIRECTLY to the local food bank, Carroll County Food Sunday, go to the CCFS donation page: http://ccfoodsunday.org/how-to-help/
This page is always available, and ensures your donation directly benefits folks here in Carroll County.
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From the Carroll County Democratic Club