§ Events

§ What is Pro-Life Unity?

§ Action Code

Thoughts of Ted Kennedy stir quite competing emotions in me.

Sadness and compassion are 2 I feel when considering Kennedy's family history.

All 3 of Kennedy's older brothers were killed young while serving their country. This meant that after his father died in 1969, Kennedy was forced at the age of 40 into the role of patriarch of a large clan that included 2 widowed sisters-in-law and 13 fatherless nieces and nephews.

Kennedy was present, for instance, at Ethel's delivery of daughter Rory 6 months after husband and father Bobby was assassinated.

But in an awful twist, John Jr. died in a plane crash on his way to Rory's wedding in 1999, yet another example of the seemingly never-ending Kennedy family tragedies.

And I feel bad about all that.

Then there's the Chappaquiddick Kennedy, which stirs shock and disbelief, and the rabble-rousing Kennedy, whose poor example did nephew William Kennedy Smith no favors, which stirs disgust.

And there is the Liberal Lion Kennedy, who wrought catastrophic harm to preborn human life.

This Kennedy infuriates me.....

Continue reading my column today, "Ted Kennedy's letter to the pope," at WorldNetDaily.com.

If you made it to the 40 Days for Life Kickoff Conference last week you got to see many speakers and hear a lot about existing and new pro-life efforts. If you weren't there, you have a chance to see it through our recorded broadcast! Speakers and members on the panel included:

Michael Martelli - Living Hope for Life
Norma McCorvey - aka “Jane Roe” from the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Case
David Bereit (via video) - Founder and National Director of 40 Days for Life
Father Peter West - Priests for Life
Maryland State Delegates Ron George and Don Dwyer
Missy Smith - WAKEUP
Randall Terry - Founder of Operation Rescue
Erik Whittington and Kortney Blythe - Rock 4 Life and American Life League
Peter Shinn - Cherish Life Ministries, Pro-Life Unity, Monthly Call for Life, PLATForum, ProLifeNews.tv, Prayer Pivot, Organized for Life, Adopt the Mills

The event was sponsored by Living Hope for Life

Note - Norma's audio drops off for a minute but than picks back up again

Peter Shinn, President of Pro-Life Unity is on the panel which starts at 1:29 into the broadcast.

This is a recording of the 04/28 OFL Teleconference

David Bereit was the emcee of this event where leaders from the Pro-Life movement discussed how Pro-Life community organizing can help shape the future of the movement. Speakers included Ruben Obregon, President of Organized for Life, Peter Shinn, National Director of OFL, Jenny Hodges, National Director of Pro-Life Unity and Jim Sedlak, Director of STOPP and Vice President of American Life League.

Click here to listen to the audio recording at Eyeblast.tv



As David said in the end "Let's go out, let's get organized for life, and let's go change our world, one heart, one mind and one life at a time."

It’s time to Organize for Life!

If you've already signed up for a Pro-Life house / church party you're in the right place. If not, click here to do so and we will sign you up!

Thank you for hosting a house or church party. By doing this, you will help pull together life activists in our peaceful effort to educate America on abortion and other life issues.

House parties are vital to helping Organized for Life and the Pro-Life movement grow – which means you will help save more lives and change our culture of death.

- We will help you coordinate your efforts with volunteers
- OFL will help you manage the information, such as who is doing what, when and where
- OFL will provide you with fliers and information for you to hand out
- We will promote your efforts and encourage others in your neighborhood to get involved.

and more!

Your goal is to attract 15-25 people or more to a party, held either at your home, your church, or be creative by having it at another location. There are multiple goals for these parties, including recruiting activists, educating friends and family, and spreading the news about Organized for Life and how it can help your community end abortion!

During these parties your guests will be asked to take specific actions to save the lives of the unborn, starting with writing a simple letter either to their representatives, the president or to the editor of your local newspaper, and, of course, going all the way to knocking on doors to deliver the message of life.

We will help you meet your attendance goals by promoting your party and reaching out to those in your area who might be able to join you.

So far over 100 people have expressed interest in holding parties nationwide with 30 or so having signed on already. We are sure we will have more by the time we go live, but imagine if only 30 actually came out of the starting gate. Imagine hundreds of people getting together and starting what will become the Nation’s largest door-to-door effort!

You will be one of those, one of the ones who helped start the new revolution in the Pro-Life movement!

Sincerely,
The OFL National Team

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Where do I begin?

To throw a successful party, you have to do three things:

1) Invite! – Invite as many people as you know who might want to help spread the message of life

2) Prepare – Send out invitations, estimate the number of people who will be coming, decide what kind of food and beverages you want to provide

3) Hold the event – Have an opening, a middle and a closing

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The opening

- The opening is the introduction. You will discuss:

What is OFL?

> Why you are there
> What they are going to hear about
> What you all are going to accomplish

- We ask that you please read the following Organized for Life statement first

Welcome to the Organized for Life kick-off party. Today, we are going to talk about how we are going to deliver the message of life to every door in America. Across the nation there are others just like us getting together for the same cause, so that eventually, every town, every city and every state will have people knocking on every door!

Thank you all for coming, and thank you for speaking up those who cannot speak for themselves. Now, let’s get Organized for life!

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The middle

- The middle is to discuss what you all will accomplish by uniting through OFL. You will:

> Present and discuss the materials they will pass out
> Discuss pro-life 101 topics and how they can better learn the Pro-Life debate, in the event people wish to discuss pro-life topics more at length. Though the purpose of Organized for Life is not to argue or debate, some discussion of the topic will be necessary, so it’s good to be properly informed
> Present and discuss the OFL Field Manual
> Encourage and motivate people to join OFL and help spread the message of life!

The closing

- Time to wrap it all up!

What is OFL?

> Why did they come
> What did they learn
> What to do next
> Encourage people to throw their own party and and ask everyone to come back next month and every middle of the month, date of your choosing. You want to keep the momentum

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Part 1. Let's get started - Throwing a party!!

The big day!! Have a DVD player ready, or alternatively, internet connection. Set up a table in your home to hold sign in sheets, name tags,etc Set up the table, bar, settings, etc Do a dry run of the itinerary Introduce the guest or play a DVD (in progress) Give a pitch

While we have promoted the idea of house and church parties, we encourage you to do what works for you. This may take the form of a meeting at a coffee house, a pizza party at your home, a barbecue or even a cocktail party.

Whatever form of party you choose, the theme of the party will be Celebrate Life!. It is a party after all, isn’t it? Getting together to celebrate life is a good thing, because through our efforts, we are going to celebrate a lot more lives who will be rescued through our peaceful efforts.

Party Goals:

Deliver the message of Organized for Life

It’s important to spread the word about a new and exciting pro-life initiative, and how people can get involved. During the party, you can give a 5 minute talk about OFL’s efforts such as:

* Pro-life Doorknocking
* Opposition of the Sotomayor nomination to the Supreme Court
* Local organizing against Planned Parenthood
* House Parties
* Organizing local chapters of OFL to fight abortion on a local level
* Community outreach efforts
* Local Activism (Sidewalk counseling, 40 Days for Life, etc)
* Depending on the nature of your party and if you have a high speed internet connection, you might want to show some youtube videos as well.

Priests for Life has an excellent playlist which describes the abortion procedures. Click here to view those videos.

Pro-Life Unity has over 240 videos, including interviews, events, concerts and more which can be played to help motivate people.

http://www.youtube.com/prolifenews

Identify Supporters and Activists

It’s crucial to identify those who will support OFL and will help you in your fight for life. We must raise funds for OFL to help organize communities around the nation, and we must raise up more activists to get involved in OFL activies like pro-life door-knocking and throwing house parties. In the beginning, the fund raising will be limited to what your needs are to make sure you have a successful Church / House Party. Eventually, as the effort grows, we will do fund raising on a local an national level to help continue the project nationwide.

Get others involved

Your party will inspire others to get involved in various OFL events, including door-knocking, literature distribution, working crowds at events, and more.

Some of your guests may be willing to throw house parties of their own, with an entirely different audience! House parties can spread like wildfire, which means that more and more people will join in the fight for life!!

We can help you
After reading this kit, please email us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or call us at 703-953-2134 and let us know when you will be planning a Party.

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Part 2. Recruiting tips

INVITATION LIST

The first step in this process is to make an invitation list of people you wish to invite. If you don’t have a large list, combine your list with a friends list and hold the party together.

And remember, personal invitations work wonders!

Here are some suggestions for people to invite

* Family. Invite your relatives, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws.
* Friends. Invite your friends and their guests, spouses, and significant others.
* Neighbors: Anybody on your block, your apartment complex, next door, jogging buddies, people you run into at the park, your children’s friend’s parents, the landlord, the postal person, and those you have identified through pro-life door knocking as being pro-life. The best way to invite them is the same as the best way to spread the pro-life message – by knocking on their door and inviting them!
* Acquaintances: People from your old job, your current job, old classmates, homeschool associations, or other groups you belong to.
* Professionals: Invite your doctor, lawyer, dentist, hair dresser, barber, or anyone whose service you use on a regular basis.
* Work: Invite your co-workers, your boss, the administrative assistants, anybody who you come into contact with at work or who are fellow volunteers in other organizations.
* Tea party organizers: Invite people who would love to end taxpayer funding of abortion and planned parenthood!
* Church: invite your pastor, church leaders, elders, the board, the choir, the members – everyone from your church.
* Social friends. Members of your softball team, aerobics class, swim team, football team, LaLeche League members, card buddies, etc,
* Past lists – a past wedding list, bachelorette or bachelor party list, birth day party list, your phone book.
* Online lists – your facebook, myspace, twitter, or other social networking list – send them an invitation!
* Remember, as you are knocking on doors, you will also be able to invite others to have their own party the following month.

Now that you have assembled your list, you are ready to send out invitations!

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SENDING THE INVITATIONS

As stated in the last section, personal invitations are key. It’s why you should actually speak with the people you are inviting, even if it means going door to door to do so. The most important invitation you make is the personal one, but don’t forget to send an actual invitation as a reminder.

For future parties, invitations should be sent out about 4 weeks in advance, and via several methods. We only have about two weeks for the opening on the 14th, so we need to reach out to as many people as possible in this time.

Your invitation should include the date, time, place, directions, a paragraph or two about organized for life, the theme of the party, and a few pointers. Please contact our office if you need guidance.

Evites and social networking invitations are effective and easy ways of reaching out to your potential guest. But be aware that if you send invites to a large amount of people by e-mail or via Facebook, there could be a delay due to these options being viewed as and attempt to distribute Spam.

Evite.com and meetup.com are great tools for promoting your parties. See http://www.evite.com for more information.

Just as it’s important to make personal invitations, it’s also very important to follow up after you have sent cards, emails, and evites with a personal call the following week.

SAMPLE ITINERARIES

HOUSE PARTY THEMES AND IDEAS

7:00 guest arrive, sign in , put on a name tag, have a drink
7:30 Host welcomes guests and introduces OFL
8:00 Host describes the problems in their community and how OFL efforts can change things
8:20 Host makes a pitch for volunteers, activists, support.
8:35 host asks people to spend the next 10 minutes writing a letter to their representatives, letters to the editor, etc (preaddressed envelopes are included). The topic should be whatever is current in Pro-Life efforts or what is listed as Current Topic on the http://oflusa.com website.
8:45 Host congratulates newcomers in the movement who have stepped forward to fight abortion, for helping to organize their community and who will encourage further involvement.
9:00 PM - finished

Remember, how you entertain is up to you

Pizza and munchies have a way of getting people to an event. But if funds or time are an issue, coffee and donuts will work, though not as well.

You can have a barbecue, a pool party, a sit down dinner, it doesn’t matter – whatever you think will help get people to come. But we encourage you to go all out, as much as possible. People are more likely to respond to events in the following order of preference: Barbecue, cocktails, h’ordeurves, pizza, coffee & donuts, coffee alone, nothing.

And remember, you don’t have to hold this in your house – a friends house, your business, a pizza parlor, etc – whatever you can afford in terms of time and effort.

CHURCH PARTY THEMES AND IDEAS

Church parties are a variation of the house party concept, except that they are held at a Church and may take on a faith based theme and tone

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THE CHECKLIST

To help you plan your party, we have provided a check list for you.

4 weeks prior to your event (don’t worry if you are not 4 weeks out, move forward anyway!) Pick a date from June 14 – July 18th

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Notify OFL at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) that you are going to hold an event.

Measurable Goals

Number of guests invited
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Number of new activists
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Number of Volunteers
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Create a theme
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Team up with a friend if need be
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Location of party
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Send Invitations
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Send Evites, e-mails
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3 weeks before Knock on the doors of neighbors etc

Invite Professionals when possible

2 weeks If necessary, get decorations and place settings, plastic cocktail glasses, supplies, etc

Create the menu Call your guests Follow-up with invitees

1 week before Get OFL materials (we will ship them or make them available online for you to download and print)

Get pens, papers, sign up sheets, contribution envelopes, name tags, pledge cards, e-mail sign up cards

Send out reminder e-mails and evites

The next day

Send OFL the cards and registration information

Send thank you notes to the guests

Fill out the form at http://www.oflusa.com/afterparty or contact our office through .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with information, such as:

- Your information
- How many came
- The general mood
- Their info (name, address, email, phone number
- Comments

Thank you for committing to the most comprehensive Pro-Life outreach ever! We will knock on every door in every community in this great country so that people will hear the message of life!

Have you already hosted a Pro-Life church / house party? If so, you're in the right place! If not, click here to sign up so you can get started.

Now that you have hosted a successful party it's time to move forward. Here are some of the things that we encouraged you to do before, during and after your event:

> Encourage someone else to agree to host a party next month.
> Sign people up to go door-knocking on a regular basis
> Plan where you and the other volunteers are going to go door-knocking and assign them areas. They should be going out once a week on Saturday morning for an hour or two.
> Make sure they give you the area where they are going to go so that you don't have more than one person covering the same houses.

Click here to contact us for more information or if you need support of any kind!