March 15, 2024| Advocacy
By: Caitlin Doran
Up until this week, I had never 1) seen Frank Capra’s famous film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, or 2) traveled to D.C. to advocate for something for which I care deeply. I’m happy to say that after this Wednesday, I’ve done both!
I was chosen by my colleagues at the Lake Hopatcong Foundation to represent us alongside other advocates from the Coalition for the Delaware River Watershed (CDRW) at Hill Day this past Wednesday, and it was an educational and inspiring experience. Hill Day is a “fly-in” event, coordinated by the CDRW, where coalition members from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware meet with our representatives in Washington D.C. to discuss the work our organizations are doing to protect, preserve, and restore our watershed and how congress can help.
These face-to-face meetings with congressional offices usually involve both appropriation requests, where we seek funding for programs that help make our watershed healthier and more accessible, as well as legislative requests, where we ask senators and representatives to co-sponsor bills that would, if passed, secure the future of at-risk wildlife, access to outdoor spaces, and create more sustainable funding mechanisms for entities like the Delaware River Basin Commission, just to name a few examples. For anyone who’d like a more in-depth description of the 2024 requests, you can find them on the CDRW’s website, along with more general information about what the CDRW does to help advocate for our waters, from Lake Hopatcong to the Delaware Bay.
I knew I’d learn a lot about how government and advocacy work through both preparing for and participating in these meetings (my team, all from New Jersey, met with staff from the offices of Representatives Watson Coleman, Gottheimer, Sherrill, Kean Jr., and Senator Booker). What I didn’t anticipate is how I would fall in love, and I do mean in love, with people and causes from places downstream advocating alongside me. Individuals like Renata Barnes, who along with Elizabeth Reyes, are introducing people of all backgrounds and experiences to nature through the New Jersey Outdoor Equity Alliance. They explained why it’s so important to use the phrase emerging communities, and not “disenfranchised, underserved, at-risk, or minority.” They see their community and their cause of getting people back to nature, as on the rise, and I certainly agree with them after spending the afternoon listening to their story.
My other big takeaway from Hill Day is you don’t have to be a member of congress to change the course of the future. We all come from somewhere – in our case, that somewhere is Lake Hopatcong – and if we are willing to take every opportunity to shine a light on the needs of our community, fight for those needs if we must, we can certainly bring about positive change. And to that end, to quote Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, “I will not yield!”
Many thanks again to the CDRW for organizing this important initiative, to LHF for nominating me to participate, and to Katie Perrone from the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters for leading the NJ-1 team. And special thanks to my best friend, Lauren Drew, who housed me and helped the whole team navigate the Capitol Complex.
