For many people, including myself, the decision to attend the two previous Yearly Kos conventions was easy. We decided to go, we pulled out a handy-dandy credit card, registered, made our hotel and flight reservations and except for the packing, we were ready to roll. But last year, kid oakland recognized that that wasn’t the case for many people.
Last summer, Kid Oakland did what many of us kinda, sorta, in our mental wanderings had pondered but utterly failed to put into action. He began raising money to help people who wanted to attend the Yearlykos Chicago gathering but couldn’t afford it.
...What he raised would provide a few "scholarships" to Yearlykos. When he was done asking, 19 people, 17 of whom you can read about here, people who otherwise could not have attended, were in Chicago, enriching themselves and everyone else in attendance with their presence.
This year, with Yearly Kos morphing into Netroots Nation, Democracy for America joined in the effort to make the convention more diverse and inclusive, contributing scholarships to cover the cost of registration and hotel for 9 deserving candidates. It gets better. There has now been enough money has been raised to give out 16 scholarships, and this is where you come in.
If you would like to attend Netroots Nation but just can’t swing it financially, you can apply for a scholarship here. You can apply under your real name or your screen name, telling why you deserve a scholarship (along with some other, not too personal information). But don’t delay because the deadline to apply is June 9.
And if you just want to help, at the same site, you can vote for the nominees that you think are the most deserving. The scholarships will be awarded based on votes received, ethnicity, gender, and so on. And after you vote, you can contribute money to help provide even more scholarships, and with over 80 applicants (so far), it would be great to get as many of them to Austin as possible.
And there are other ways to contribute: If you have frequent-flyer miles sitting around collecting dust, Land of Enchantment is coordinating a program to donate them to help off-set travel costs for deserving candidates. Contact her here.
Or, if you’ve already registered for the convention and have since learned that you can’t attend, or you’re on a panel and won’t need it, please contact Land of Enchantment to arrange to donate it.
So get busy...apply, contribute, donate and vote. Help make Netroots Nations as inclusive as possible. But before you do all that, please give this a rec so as many people as possible see this.
