It’s California Public Interest Research Group’s pledge week again, and I am proud to say I will be one of many people on campus wearing orange “I pledged CALPIRG” stickers for the next few days. I’ll wear my sticker to show that I care about global warming, textbook rip-offs, the health care crisis, hunger and homelessness, and that I’m willing to put $5 a quarter toward solving these problems.
CALPIRG is a statewide, student-run, student-funded organization that trains and empowers students to take action and ““ most importantly ““ to get results. In fact, results are the organization’s specialty: Over the past several years, CALPIRG has registered thousands of students to vote, helped to pass the high-speed rail initiative, convinced a major textbook publisher to reduce the price of their books by 20 percent, and raised thousands of dollars for local homeless organizations.
These results are possible because 30,000 students across California care enough about these issues to add $5 onto their tuition. That money pays for advocates and researchers who work full time on behalf of students, making sure our voices are heard loud and clear on campus and in the capital. It also pays for organizers who work on campus to train student interns and volunteers on the skills of effective activism.
I should know ““ I’ve been a volunteer with CALPIRG since my freshman year at UCLA.
I got involved as a way to have a real impact on the issues I care about most. The issue I was most concerned with was college affordability. I wasn’t very political, but it seemed unfair that millions of students can’t afford to go to college and others graduate with thousands of dollars in crippling debt.
I joined CALPIRG and immediately found myself coordinating a campaign to increase student financial aid at the federal level. Our campus organizer trained us to employ every grassroots tactic in the book: We called and wrote to members of Congress, we put on a press conference to publicize the issue, and we even collected students’ stories and photos in a “Student Debt Yearbook” that we hand-delivered to our representative. When we heard from our advocate in Washington, D.C., that there was going to be a bill introduced in Congress on the issue, I flew to the capital to lobby members of Congress in person.
A few weeks later, the bill passed through Congress and was signed into law, making it the largest increase to student financial aid since World War II. At the signing ceremony, Sen. Ted Kennedy credited the work of CALPIRG students with its passage. I don’t think I’ve ever felt more empowered than I did on that day.
As college students, it’s rare that we experience that sense of empowerment. We are often ignored by the political establishment and have to work twice as hard as our older counterparts to get our issues addressed. Fortunately, CALPIRG exists to help us make our voices heard and train us to be successful citizen activists.
You may not have time to start your own campaign yet, but you don’t have to travel to the capital to make a difference. You can have an impact just by pledging CALPIRG.
In order to fund the UCLA CALPIRG chapter, we need 15 percent of the student body to pledge to pay $5 every quarter.
You’ve probably seen us out in full force on campus recently. Right now, we are undertaking the largest single pledge drive any CALPIRG chapter has gone through: 3,100 new students in just a few days.
So next time you see a sticker-clad, clipboard-bearing CALPIRG representative, stop by and take a minute to pledge. Help ensure that CALPIRG can continue to fight on behalf of UCLA students and the greater public for many years to come.
Sarah Dobjensky is a third-year political science student and chair of CALPIRG at UCLA.