My soap making process
Beginning in the Summer of 2020, I joined in collaboration with Joey Sweeney to offer an accessible resource for the public following the Pennsylvania school funding lawsuit. Together with the Public Interest Law Center and the Education Law Center, we devised the FundOurSchoolsPA social media campaign and website.
We began by amassing a visual reference set up to remind the viewer at each touchpoint that this case is about our kids — the future of Pennsylvania. Working with our illustrator Lauren Cat West, and employing a color palette inspired by W.E.B. DuBois’ inspiring infographics, our visuals speak the “primary colors” or building-blocks-of-learning nature of elementary and middle schools. Likewise, our two fonts — New Reason and Adobe Caslon — have been chosen for their clarity and directness.
With this visual language, we mean to convey the common-sense values of our case while also putting the viewer in that world of the school — to view it as a central right, something that should be a given starting point for everyone in America life.
The website is our repository for all the materials, calls to action, and ways to get involved we wish to make publicly available. In our day to day, we have already discovered that the website really shines when it:
Offers maps and data visualization to drop people right into the facts and figures of the case as they pertain to their immediate community
Has event listings of webinars and other actions
Offers them direct ways to get involved, whether it’s telling their stories or volunteering to help spread the word
The website is also very much a living document, designed to be dynamic and offer up-to-the-minute info about the case.
The heroes of our story came from two main sources: Our Plaintiffs and the movement of everyday people that they represent.
List Building to prepare for Mobilizing with coalition partners
a webinar series co-Hosted by the law firms and partners
Digital Storytelling with educators, school community members and students
A regularly updated newsletter for two years
Underfunded: Inside The Fight To Fairly Fund Public Schools In Pennsylvania a multiepisode Podcast
A multichange social media campaign
