Civic engagement & the babysitter solution

Voting Now: Turning Rights into Reality

Everyday working parents face all kinds of roadblocks when they set out to participate in civic life. Childcare is expensive, making any kind of impactful and sustained civic engagement, including voting, difficult for parents.

Our guest for this episode, Rachel Sowray, is an attorney and mom that works on and finds solutions to this problem. She started the non-profit, non-partisan group Politisit (babysit + politics = Politisit) to carry out the mission of addressing and relieving the financial barriers to civic engagement for parents, clearing a pathway for more people to get involved in government. One way they do this is by reimbursing individuals and groups for childcare expenses. And it's working. So far, two of Polititsit’s former clients have run for office and are now elected officials!

Rachel spoke to our guest host and attorney Christopher Pallanch about how she started the non-profit and why it’s so important to get more people involved in civics. Although the group is based in Oregon, during the interview she talks about two out of states childcare sites she's found, we're excited to announce that after the interview she located an additional six sites in Dallas and Miami.