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Hello everybody, thank you for listening to the Healthy Project podcast. I am your host, Corey Dion Lewis. I have a great guest with me today talking about something that we don't really put in the same category of social determinants of health or health equity, which I'm super excited about. Heather being here with me, thank you so much. Yeah. So before we get into the topic of civic engagement, I probably should have said that,

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a little bit about yourself, what you do, and what gets you up in the morning. Yeah, sure. So, hi everybody. I am Heather Jones Brown. I am, so a couple of things that get me up in the morning are my family, of course, but also when it comes to like the things that excite me about the world and about work. I really like to do a lot of work around equity and inclusion

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I work full time at Grinnell College and do staff equity work there. And then I have always been like really excited about community work and civic engagement. So I'm born and raised from Des Moines. So I like really enjoy being able to find ways to build community in this place that I've that's been my home since I was born. Yeah. And it shows me you are you are boots on the ground doing a lot of work.

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I just see you out doing a lot of things you don't normally see people wanting to do. I guess Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. If that makes sense. Yeah. So the reason why I really wanted to talk to you and I know this is something that you're really, you know, really working on now and passionate about or maybe you've always been passionate about civic engagement, at least from our when we had coffee. Yeah. I'm like, okay, this is you're about that life. Yeah. But the idea for

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civic engagement and improving and reducing health disparities was something more I think about it now it makes it makes sense but I really wasn't putting the two together at you know before I just what I just wasn't yeah no no reason I just wasn't doing it yep but um for each for you when you think of can you explain civic engagement for those that don't really yeah understand it and um uh and why is it important yeah um so

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One thing when I think about civic engagement, and I talk about this a lot, we need people to care about everything, but not every individual person can care about everything. And so when I think about civic engagement, I think about what are the things, that question, what gets you up in the morning, right? I think about what are the things that I find or I see as gaps that are important to me, and then how can I help make those things better?

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So civic engagement can look very different to different people. But one of the baseline things with civic engagement is utilizing my voice to cast a vote when there are elections happening, whether it's for the local municipal races, all the way up to our federal races. That's the first thing with civic engagement, but then it expands from there. Right. And you said something that was interesting using your voice.

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Don't feel like you hear my voice doesn't matter. Yeah, right. Yeah, but You told me something you told me a story about how somebody's your voice does actually matter Yeah, you talk about that it really could they really kind of cosines like why? We all should get out no matter what size you're voting on and get up there and get your vote out Yeah, I mean so I and I think this is the same story that that I'm thinking of that we were talking about but I

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people's voices mattering. One, that comes from where like, there may be a municipal race where, and I think this is the one that I was talking about, we had a school board election last year, and there were two candidates running on the east side of the city. And both of those candidates were awesome candidates, and of course one of the people won. However, there was a candidate

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running on the west side of Des Moines that they were running by themselves and they got more votes than both of the candidates on the east side combined. And that was like, hey, you know, like if we're going to talk about like how our voices can matter, more people, if they would have participated in that, we would have shown that, you know, like the this is an

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to participate in the voter process. Not to say that people aren't, but maybe people didn't know how to be able to engage in that way. Right, and I also feel like people, and definitely expand on this if you will, but people don't really focus on some of the things that they can vote on outside of the presidential race. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and what's so wild is that the municipal races,

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the biggest impact on our day-to-day lives because the like all community is local we talk about that a lot but that also includes our local government too so if um if I am concerned about something going on in my child's education which I don't have a kid but I'm just using this as an example but um if I'm concerned about something in that space then the the person that I can go and talk to is the person that serves on my school board if I

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want to start a building project in the city or maybe I've got a small business and I want to open that small business inside the city limits of Des Moines, I'm going to need to have a conversation with planning and zoning committee in the city of Des Moines that will then talk with city council about whether or not that space that I'm looking at is going to be eligible for being a business. And so if if I am not seeing things moving in a direction

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that fits where I think it's gonna be good, then I have to be engaged and actually vote for those things because otherwise, people that may not align with how I look at something is not going to be moving things forward for my values. Does that make sense? That makes total sense. Talking more about kind of the...

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the voting process, voting registration, and getting that out there. And I've been seeing a whole lot of that recently, getting people registered to vote. What are some of the common misconceptions about voter registration that you think people should be aware of? Yeah, I think one is that it's hard to get registered to vote. It's definitely not. You can register to vote online through the Iowa Department of Transportation,

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your voter registration at any time. There are a lot of events where people are helping folks fill out voter registration forms. And then once that voter registration form gets filled out, whoever is organizing that event, they send it to the county auditor's office so that you can get your voter registration card in the mail. I think that's one thing that people have concern about. I think people that may have been justice impacted may think that they may not be eligible to vote.

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But people in the state of Iowa there was a an executive order that was signed by the governor in 20 either 2020 or 2021 Where people that have been paying their restitution are eligible to vote and so they can get registered Yeah, so like so Hypothetically, I had a felony. Yep Got out fresh out. I'm paying

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I can register to vote. Yes. I don't think a lot of people know that. I don't think a lot of people do know that. And that's something that I think has created some barriers and fear. Because if you are not eligible to vote, you could then have more, like be justice impacted even more so. And so it's good to look at the Iowa Secretary of State's website to check on whether or not you're eligible. OK, that was my next question. How do you see if you're eligible?

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put in your name and it's like, yes, no. It'll show you some information about what are the parameters around somebody that's justice impacted being able to register to vote. You can also check your voter registration status on the Secretary of State's website as well. Right. There was something you told me about, I would love for you to explain because I don't think this is also something a lot of people don't know. This is why I'm glad you're here, because there's so much stuff I don't know people

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I get so excited, so I'm really jazzed. But voter rollouts or purges and people not understanding, can you talk about that a little bit? Yes. Yeah. And I'm going to give you more information so that people can do a little bit. Yes. I'll make sure I link those in the description of this episode. Yeah. I know that it's really important for people to see the full scope of it. But the idea is that if you have not participated in the last, I believe it's the last two

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may not be on the voter registration rolls anymore. So that means that if you go in on election day, you think you're registered to vote, they may say, sorry, we don't have you on the list. And that's because they have went through and looked at who has voted in the last couple of election cycles. And if that person hasn't participated, the state has the authority to take that off if they see that. And so that's why it's always, when people, sometimes you'll be,

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at a voter registration event and like people will be like, are you registered to vote? Well, the question usually that we've been training people when we do voter registration is, are you registered to vote at your current address? Because if your if your address has changed or if you haven't participated recently, you may want to double check your voter registration status to ensure that you're ready to go on voter on election day. Right. And I feel like that kind

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those that are justice impacted, as you said, or those who felt like there's no one I wanna vote for, therefore I'm not gonna vote. Yep. It's just another barrier to, oh, well, might as well just, I can't do anything. And they don't wanna make that next step to get out there and let their voice be heard for their community. Yes. And that's kind of what I wanna talk about next is the importance of,

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your voice being heard, but your voice being heard for your community. Right. And I would love you to talk about one, the, you know, why that is important. Yeah. And like what can, what does change look like if people start focusing more on school board or insert something that is impacting their neighborhood and their community outside of like who the next president

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Yeah, I think one thing that's difficult is we are all subject to the 24 hour news cycle. And I think that there's a strong feeling that presidential elections never end because everybody's always campaigning, right? My kids, they're watching YouTube videos and they're on their YouTube videos. Yeah, yeah. And like, and if you are also depending on if you don't align with a party, you're

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that you're seeing an ad for that may make you feel some type of way or if like the issue that's being advertised is something that gets you riled up you may just feel like well they they the big they collective they are are gonna just make the decisions anyway so let me just step back and one

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Like we all need social media detox. So like, so if you are seeing those things in your feed like take a break, I promise you it'll be okay. But also if I am only seeing those things by the news channels that I'm watching or the social media advertising that I'm seeing, I'm not actually seeing what's happening in my community. I don't get to see like the amazing good work that is happening in all these

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across our city, like the amount of love and care that is happening in our city is palpable, but we don't know it if we don't go out and seek it. Yeah, that is so true.

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So tell me a little bit about Vision Leads. Tell me about that. How's that going? Yeah, so it's going great. So Vision Leads is an organization that was like, there were a group of Iowans that like in 2020, when all these uprisings were happening in May, June, July, like people were trying to figure out, where can I be impactful? And like, if I see this organization here and maybe that's not the space I wanna be.

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in or maybe I don't want to be an elected official and maybe I don't want to do this work, then what else can I do? So we started bringing people together and kind of having conversations about what is community and like what are the social determinants of health for our community that like how do we figure out what we can do together and so and that's of course grown over

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is we did some training for folks that may be interested in running for municipal office. We trained like 20 people last year and some of those people ran for office last year. Some of those people are running for office this year. Some people are like, I wanted this information so I can help somebody run for office.

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And so like that was really great. And then this year, a lot of our focus is on voter registration and voter engagement. So something we got going on right now is we are doing a program that is the Vision Leads Community Connect program, where we are asking organizations to adopt a precinct for this election cycle. And we want them to be connecting with them through events, through voter registration drives,

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to do door engagements with people. But the caveat though is that most of the time you have to opt in and put some money on the table to help cover the costs. And we've been fortunate enough that we've been able to secure funding so that if an organization adopts a precinct and they meet some of these milestones, we can give them some money towards their organization, which is really dope. Very cool, very cool. And that takes a lot of pressure

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on what they're trying to do. Yes, yes. So there's like organizations traditionally that have embedded civic engagement like churches, fraternity, sororities. There's some nonprofits that do civic engagement work. If people have an organization like that, we actually have an informational coming up for Polk County on Thursday, February 29th, which is going to be at the downtown library here in Des Moines at six o'clock. And so I'm going to give you the link too so people can sign up.

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We would love for people to show up and just learn more and see if it works for them. Yeah, and I would definitely make sure I highlight that, you know, in our conversation today because I do think that is important that people have that information and it's right here in a central place where they can get it. Right, right. And they can, and the cool thing about the precincts that we are targeting, these are precincts that have been historically, like, where people may be registered or they may

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before, but they, so like we were talking about in the beginning, maybe the East side, where we're going to be going in door knocking on some precincts on the East side, because I, you know, I'm an East side kid. So I want the East side to know that like, we care about you. Like, like, like our community like cares about the East side, we care about the North side, the South side, the West side, like we care about all of us. And so we want all of our voices at the table through that vote and however else people want to be engaged. Right. So I know.

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All this sounds so amazing, but I know there's challenges. Yeah. But instead of focusing on the challenges, how do you?

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push past those challenges to make things, just to see how you see the bright, how do you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Yeah, yeah. That's a really good question, because if any of you out here are community organizers, I promise you I understand that it's not easy. Because community organizing is like, as much as you love the community, sometimes it's hard to get people engaged, but also people are working.

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three, four jobs. Some people are working at night and are sleeping during the day. Some people have kids or people that they're caring for where maybe they can't get out and be as engaged, right? And so like, I always have to tell myself that like, one, every person has value. So like, there are ways for people to be engaged if they are not able to be boots on the ground. But two, like, we all are able

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to be involved at whatever level works for us and whatever issue works for us, right? I know that health equity is important, but it's not the space where I'm jumping in and that it's driving me, right? Or my brother, he works in ag and does a lot of different ag stuff. I know that our ag community and the work that's being done there is really important,

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And that's, you know, like I was saying in the beginning, that's why we need us all, but like we have to, people should be going where they're, they're, they're like. Their energy's at. Yes, yes, yeah. And so when, but sometimes if you don't know where you wanna get in or how to do it, like that's another thing for us with Vision Leads is like, how can we help you tap in to what you are excited about? Right, no, that's dope, that's dope.

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Thanks for watching.

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This was so informative. Thank you so much. Before I get you going, and I do this every time, I don't know why, it's just, it is just routine. Cause I'm gonna have all of this in the description. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But before I get you going, is there, one, is there anything else you feel like people should know and if anybody wanted to connect with you about vision leads or anything that you're doing, where can they find you? Yeah, okay. So if you wanna find me on a personal,

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level, almost all of my socials are at H to the Gizones, which is like from like a whole like college nickname that has stuck with me forever. And so that's where most of my socials are. And then for vision leads, we are at www.visionleads.org. You can find us on Facebook, you can also find us on Instagram. And then if you need to reach out to us directly via email, we have an email address.

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which is hello at visionleads.org.

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Yeah. We need more people to be helping us reach this vision. Like I said, we're doing it statewide. So if you know people across the state, like reach out to us. And yeah, I mean, I'm just glad to be able to talk about something that obviously gets me amped. Right. So I can tell that. And that's I first of all, I needed that energy today. So thank you. Yeah. And again, thank you for being on the show. I appreciate it. Everybody. Thank you for listening to the Healthy Project.

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I'll holla at you next time.