DC Trip Day 4

Welcome to Lobby Day!  We left our hotel at 815 and lugged our bags to the Cannon house office building where the summit had its base for the day. 

After dropping our bags we walked across Capitol Hill to our first meeting in the Russell building at Sen. Markey's office. 

We got there an hour early, which gave us time to modify our presentation so that everyone had a role every time. 

We even did a run through. Then Pam Fierst, Markey's foreign policy aide, arrived and the kids went right into it. They hit it out of the park, and Pam was effusive in her praise. She was especially impressed at the sophistication of our three "asks" - prepared for us by Enough and the summit team. I will put up our script in another post. Pam responded by really getting into the details of these issues with us. She then told the kids about her background. Turns out she is a career State Dept person who is working temporarily for Markey's office. She got a JD before going to work for State. She lived in Sudan and South Sudan for 6 years doing serious work on the ground in Darfur, Nuba, Blue Nike, etc. She made a deep impression on our kids, many of whom dream of doing work like this someday. She is one of the most impressive people I have ever met in Washington. A future Secretary of State. From there we grabbed lunch in the cafeteria in the basement of the Dirksen Senate office building. 

This might be the best lunch spot we have yet found in DC. We then went to the Hart building to Sen. Warren's office. We met there with Feras Sleiman, the same aide we met with last year. 

He was likewise impressed and full of praise for the kids presentation. The kids were also interested in his background, having earned a JD before going to work for Sen. Warren. Kalin asked if you have to be a lawyer to work as a staffer - we just happen to have met with two of the most educated folks working on the Hill. Though from DC, he is a Patriots fan because he is a Michigan alum like Tom Brady. Now we had to trek back across to Cannon to Rep. Keating's office, taking some group pics along the way on a bright chilly afternoon. 

There we met with Kerry O'Brien as we did last year - she is awesome at connecting with the students on these issues. There was a double booking so we had to give her our presentation in the hallway. 

Despite this, the kids again did a great job, and impressed her so much that she committed on the spot to our first two asks, and the third depending on scheduling. How's that for immediate results! Of course it helps that we have the fortune of being represented by some of the most progressive members of Congress on human rights issues. We found we had an hour before we were to meet at the summit room, so we headed over to the Library of Congress for a visit.

First time I've taken a student group there. Then we went back to Cannon, did the conference wrap up, got changed, and then dragged our bags back across Capitol Hill to Union Station.

There we caught the train, took the shuttle to the airport, grabbed some dinner, the flew home.  We met parents and off they went home to Cape Cod. Great work, everyone!