Outreach Tables
Written by Brian Parra   
Wednesday, 05 November 2008 22:33
This past month I had two opportunities to man an outreach table for Atheists United. One was the Orange County Combined Federal Campaign Kick-Off event, and the other was the LA/Valley Pride Festival in Studio City, CA, where we showed our solidarity with the "No on 8" campaign.

While these were two very different events: the first, limited to federal employees in Orange County-surrounded by their co-workers, strolling by, seeing the numerous charities they could contribute to through payroll deduction; and the other, a daylong festival celebrating the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender lifestyle complete with marriages, music, vendors and lots of colorful characters, it was surprising that the general reaction to us at both events was the same: some odd looks, a few argumentative Fundies who were mostly just trying to waste our time, but mostly positive reactions from people who didn't even know there was such a thing as an atheist organization.

We made quite an impact at both events, and we passed out a lot of pencils with atheistsunited.org printed on them, gave away literature, and gathered contact information from people who were interested in our organization.

This sort of public outreach accomplishes all sorts of positive things for our organization, the most important being putting us in touch with people who might support us, and ultimately may join our cause if only they knew we existed.

If anyone is interested in manning a public outreach table at a public festival, county fair, farmer's market, or a well-traveled public place near you, contact me here and we can set you up with the materials and, yes, even the table, to help spread the word about Atheists United. If you need some pointers about how to handle the Fundies, I can share some ideas about that too.