Home / The Showcase
Vote Your Values Showcase
Host a showcase in your town.
There are two ways to participate. Pick the one that fits your role — or do both.
How It Works
Two tracks, one event.
Every Vote Your Values Showcase needs two kinds of people: someone to organize the event and organizations willing to bring a showcase table. Most towns will have one event organizer (or a small team) and up to twelve participating organizations, each with a table and five minutes to present their values.
Read the track that fits you. If you are a pastor, a civic leader, or the person who always ends up running the pancake breakfast — you are probably an event organizer. If you are part of a church committee, a prayer group, a service club, or a non-profit — you are probably a showcase table.
Organize the event.
You are the person who makes the room happen. You find the venue, rally the participants, and put up the posters. Here is the checklist, in order.
- Find a host location. A church fellowship hall is the first choice — it signals community, not politics. An Elks Hall, VFW post, Moose Lodge, or public library meeting room all work. You need space for up to six banquet tables, a small podium or mic, and room for attendees to circulate.
- Coordinate your date with Lester. There are thirteen volunteer zones in House District 89 and Lester has set out a travel schedule between now and May 24th. Make every effort to host your event on a date when Lester can be in your zone — he will bring petition sheets, notary coordination, and the full SaveRuralChurches presentation. Contact Lester to lock in your date before someone else in your zone claims it. Showcases run May 5 – 15. Earlier is better for scheduling.
- Recruit up to twelve participating organizations. Each organization gets a banquet table and five minutes at the podium to present their five highest-priority values. Start with every congregation in town — mainline, evangelical, Catholic, all of them. Then hit the service clubs: Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis, Knights of Columbus, Elks, VFW. Then civic groups: League of Women Voters, 4-H, county Farm Bureau. Twelve tables fills six banquet tables (two orgs per table) comfortably. The first 12 to register get the speaking slot. Walk-ins are welcome but may only have a table.
- Order your posters from Lester. Contact Lester to order 11×17 color posters for storefronts and church lobbies, and 8.5×11 color flyers for bulletin boards, bulletin inserts, and handouts. He will customize them with your town, date, time, and location.
- Put up posters around town. Every church lobby, every diner window, every post office bulletin board, every laundromat, every co-op. The gas station. The hardware store. The library. If there is a surface in town where people stop and read, put a poster on it.
- Get donated ad space in the local paper. Call the editor. Explain the event. Ask for a donated quarter-page or, at minimum, a calendar listing and a news mention. Small-town papers are hungry for local event coverage. Give them a reason to cover yours.
- Get announcements into church bulletins. Every congregation in town should have the event in their Sunday bulletin for at least two weeks before the showcase. Ask the host pastor to call the other pastors personally. The invitation carries more weight pastor-to-pastor than flyer-to-mailbox.
- Start a social media blitz. Post the poster graphic to every local Facebook group, community page, and neighborhood forum. Share it on your personal page. Ask every participating organization to share it on theirs. Tag the local paper. Tag the candidates. Repetition is the point.
Bring a showcase table.
You represent a church committee, prayer group, service club, or community organization. Your job is to show up with your five values, a poster, and a spokesperson ready to present.
- Call a committee meeting. Gather your prayer group, your church council, your service club board, or your non-profit team. Tell them about the showcase. The assignment is simple: as a group, agree on the five values you most want your elected representatives to champion. Not ten. Not twenty. Five. The constraint is the point — it forces you to decide what actually matters most.
- Choose your spokesperson. One person will have five minutes at the podium to present your organization’s five values to the room. Pick the person who can speak clearly and with conviction. This is not a debate. It is a declaration: here is what we believe matters.
- Make your tri-fold poster. A standard tri-fold display board from Walmart costs about four dollars. Put your organization’s name across the top. List your five values prominently. Add whatever supporting material you want — photos, scripture, mission statements, brochures. This poster sits on your banquet table so attendees can read it as they circulate the room. Bring any brochures or literature about your organization’s mission for the table too.
- Spread the word. Tell your congregation, your club, your neighbors what you are doing. Encourage other organizations in town to register their own table. The more groups that participate, the clearer the picture of what your community actually values — and the harder it is for any candidate to ignore.
After the Showcase
What happens with your values.
Event organizers will form a committee after the showcase to compile and summarize the community’s values into a single document. That document belongs to the churches and organizations — not to SaveRuralChurches.org, not to any candidate.
The compiled values will be published and delivered to every candidate on the ballot for U.S. Congress, state senate, and state house. Every candidate will be asked to respond — publicly — with their personal commitment to the community’s priorities.
Before November, voters will receive a report card: who committed, who responded, and who stayed silent. Silence becomes its own answer.
Download
The poster.
Click the poster or the button below to download a print-ready PNG. Lester will customize it with your town’s date, time, and location when you coordinate your event.
