Mail that matters

It’s not often that, on one of the last glorious sunny days before autumn’s chill sets in, you’ll see people thronging to spend their Sunday not relaxing in the park, not going to the beach, but sitting down at a streetside stall to craft a letter.

A letter to a stranger.

About climate and voting.

And yet, that was the scene in Jackson Heights, the multicultural beating heart of Queens, during an event by Street Works Earth/Make Justice Normal, a local collective co-founded by artist and community organizer Anjali Deshmukh.

Why?

With thousands of people convening in New York for Climate Week, with its big UN sessions, big events and big panel discussions, Deshmukh wanted to find a way to help those in her own community connect to these issues too.

“Climate activism is for everybody,” she says. “And I think having this on the street reminds us of how it’s possible for all of us to be climate activists in our own way.”

With the presidential election a mere month away, it’s an opportunity for people here to feel heard and have a sense of agency, contributing to the policy change needed to make meaningful progress.

“Climate action is policy action,” Deshmukh says. “We can talk about individual responsibilities, but all of those things are either incentivized or disincentivized by policy. And the only way we can change policy is by civic action. And that includes voting and getting involved in local community decisions.”

Stacked on the table are pre-printed “I vote because” letters to registered voters across the country who didn’t vote in the last election. A team of volunteers help to match the letters to a specific voter and address. Each letter written on this street in Queens will be sent to a name from the list. Like Nataly and Jaden from Georgia, who will soon receive theirs in their letterbox.

Climate comes back time and time again in the letters and the neighborhood kids are having fun, utterly absorbed in adorning them with the felt markers provided. There are lots of red hearts and green globes. The kids are all in agreement – if they could vote, they would. They’d vote for the planet.

Their parents, too, are concerned. About what the future holds for their children. Or children’s children. They’re aware of the leading role the US plays in climate policy across the world. Aware of all that is at stake in this election, and the need to turn the tide now, before we run out of time. It’s why they are willing to read their letters aloud on camera. After all, the more people they can inspire with their letter, the better.

By early afternoon there’s already an impressive number of letters on display, clipped to a clothesline framing the stall. Waving gently in the breeze, they feel alive, just like the heartfelt words penned on the paper, each in their own distinctive script and voice. You only need to read a few to see why this works.

“It’s a simple thing. Authentic, honest, specific, so people know you’re a real person… and I think that’s communication, isn’t it? That’s what community engagement is. It’s authentic, honest communication with people. And we can do it on the streets, but we can also do it by mail,” Deshmukh smiles.

The potential impact of this analog activism is real. Handwritten letters to voters have been shown to increase the likelihood that they’ll go to the polls in research by Vote Forward, which has developed the infrastructure for reaching voters.

So, how many potential voters are we talking about? There are eight million people who have indicated that climate is an important topic for them, and are registered voters, but didn’t vote in the last election, according to the Environmental Voter Project. That’s a lot in elections that are so tight that a few thousand votes in crucial states can determine the outcome.

But for Deshmukh, writing these letters is so much more than a way to encourage people to vote. It’s also about “showing how democracy can be joyful in our public spaces”. And “a way for people who have not been given the opportunity to tell their own story and express themselves”.

Ultimately, change is about building community, she believes. She has seen this for herself when Covid ravaged what would become one of the city’s worst-hit areas. Her eyes still well up talking about it.

“Change happens because we’ve developed a deep connection. Mutual solidarity. The ability to take care of each other. The ability to support each other. And our love for one another. We have to start there. We’re activated around climate change. But we’re also here to support community development, environmental health, physical health. All of it’s connected and for us that’s the goal. To not treat climate change as a siloable topic, because that’s not the world. We’re sitting in climate right now. But we’re also sitting in our neighborhood.”

And at this small neighborhood stall on a sunny New York afternoon, we’re reminded of what community looks like and all that’s possible at street-level. Individual strangers coming together around folding tables, with nothing but pen and paper, doing their best to contribute to a better future.