2025 in Review: Roanoke Indivisible
We reignited the chapter around a dining room table in January. A scrappy initial protest in February and countless meetings in coffee shops connected more and more local organizers as we built toward our Kick Off on March 1st. Hundreds of people showed up, and our working groups hit the ground running!
Our first major rally was HANDS OFF on April 5th, and it set a tone we're proud to maintain: intersectional representation, centering the voices of those closest to the impact of MAGA cruelty and corruption. Our safety marshals and accessibility volunteers have made sure each rally was peaceful, deepening their own knowledge and training new folks along the way. We've refined our processes and built up expert volunteer teams for sound, medics, safety—and JOY!
We're continuously grateful for our excellent Media and Comms team—professionals who create media advisories, press releases, and organize coverage before and during our major events.
We launched the beautiful Humans of SWVA project, sharing stories of local people navigating this insane time through gorgeous photos and thoughtful interviews. They've created a monthly listening circle to help people share their experiences and perspectives across lines of difference.
We've built close relationships with local organizations serving our immigrant neighbors and worked with them to identify and share best practices for ICE observation. In partnership with them, we launched a court observer program and trained dozens of volunteers to document information that can help protect our neighbors from unjust deportations. We've got more in the works!
We established a baseline process for electoral endorsements, identifying the progressive issues that drive our decision-making. We held a postcard party, co-hosted polling place festivities, and organized election volunteer info to share with the community. We’d love to have more people support our legislative and electoral projects in 2026! Email RoanokeIndivisible@gmail.com to get involved!
We tirelessly refined our onboarding process to create the smoothest, warmest, most efficient version we could—and then hosted a statewide call to share and learn best practices from other Indivisibles and grassroots organizations in Virginia.
We launched our own Visibility Brigade, staging overpass messaging that reached thousands. We started small and scrappy and built up to a full alphabet, a smooth securing process, and a dedicated team of volunteers who not only show up but coordinate with state and national teams on messaging campaigns.
We held multiple well-attended teach-ins, from Organizing 101 in the spring to a robust variety of workshops scheduled well into 2026. Those teach-ins spawned a new working group—our Deep Canvassing team! These folks are just getting started, but they'll be taking on the incredible work of bridging the divides in SWVA through evidence-based compassionate conversations on issues—not preaching, but listening, connecting, and deeply engaging on a human level.
We held a strategic planning session for the working group coordinators and decided on our unifying vision: building people power and opportunities for meaningful connection and sustained action in our community, to create a future that is truly "of, for, and by the people."
Every single person who had a hand in this work is an unpaid Roanoker, driven to convert anger and despair into meaningful action. There is nothing that makes any of us "qualified" beyond our commitment to a big tent, inclusive movement for progress in the face of authoritarianism. We've put in a lot of hours to get where we are, and we've found that hope abounds in taking action.
This is a people powered movement, and we need you in it—not just cheering from the sidelines. It runs on people showing up, contributing what they can, when they can. It's going to take a lot of us, taking turns being active and resting, holding each other up and keeping this work sustainable. Jump in. We’ll help you find your spot. This movement needs your hands, your voice, your presence—because it only works if we're all building it together.