Campaigns, Demands & Victories
Seasonal Campaigns
Winter Survival Campaign
Statistically, WSWA’s budget-saving Winter Survival Campaign saves at least six lives each winter when our members mobilize to aid one another in preventing disasters, such as utility shutoffs, house fires caused by unsafe heating methods, or fatalities from untreated illness, inadequate nutrition and lack of shelter.
How you can help:
Collect and distribute blankets, jackets, winter coats, scarves, hats, gloves and boots for WSWA members and their children.
Join the winter canvass campaign to reach members and potential members in their homes, where many risk no-heat situations or other emergencies.
Collect high-protein and other staple foods for distribution: peanut butter, cereal, rice, soups, vegetable oil, beans and lentils.
Join the Winter Watch phone tree to keep in contact with members in vulnerable situations.
Spring Expansion Campaign
With temperatures already 90 degrees and climbing, WSWA’s Spring Expansion Campaign organizes additional collections of high protein foods and weekly supplemental food distributions and conducts utility advocacy to keep members’ lights and air conditioning on.
How you can help:
Help run WSWA’s annual Spring Family Brunch & Children’s Egg Hunt to build unity among members and allies in the community.
Help run food drives to collect cereal, rice, beans, cooking oil and vegetables to offset expenses for food so members can pay down debts acquired during the winter.
Advocate to stop deadly utility shutoffs.
Host speaking engagements in your classroom, house of worship, club meeting or other assembly to spread the word.
Summer Survival Campaign
Every year, heat kills more people than all other natural disasters combined. WSWA volunteers and delegates mobilize Summer Watch Phone Trees during heat waves to check on members especially vulnerable to heat-related illness — due to substandard housing conditions and inadequate cooling — and make benefits available. South Sacramento and Del Paso Heights zip codes 95823, 95824, and 95838 suffer heat 20 degrees hotter than other areas like Land Park and East Sacramento.
How you can help:
Join Summer Survival canvasses and go door-to-door in low-income neighborhoods where members have invited WSWA to sign up new members.
Help organize medical education and information sessions with volunteer professionals about how workers can stay safe in the summer heat.
Collect and distribute water, light-weight clothing, fans, window AC units and dehumidifiers to help members keep cool during heat waves.
Provide transportation to cooling centers, including WSWA’s Office Central.
Holiday Campaign
WSWA volunteers have created budget-saving programs for members to help other members meet seasonal needs such as holiday food basket distributions for Thanksgiving and Christmas time, and holiday toy distributions to parents for their private family gift giving to their children.
How you can help:
Help organize a Trick-or-Treat for Service Workers neighborhood food drive and a Safe and Sane Halloween Party.
Collect turkeys, all the fixings and other holiday food for Thanksgiving and Holiday Food Basket Benefit distributions in November and December and deliver them to members.
Collect toys for distribution to members for their children for private family gift giving.
Organize a Family Holiday Party for member families.
Demands & Victories
WSWA puts domestic workers struggle for justice on the map!
Starting in 1973, WSWA won historic firsts by organizing low-income in-home caregivers, employed through the Sacramento County-run and state- and federally-funded In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, a social service program for eligible low-income aged, blind and disabled residents. Workers and recipients of in-home care united their demands, refusing to be pitted against one another in a fight both for living wages and job benefits for the workers, and more hours of care and a say in policy of what personal care services would be covered for IHSS recipients. WSWA members have taken their demands before the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors, state legislature and the state labor commissioner, making historic gains for IHSS workers and recipients alike.
WSWA Members Demand Public Tree Canopy and Jobs, Not Privatization
The average canopy coverage for the City of Sacramento is only 19%. Temperatures in areas with shade coverage are reduced by as much as 20 degrees Fahrenheit, resulting in 20-40% reduction in energy use in the summer months, leading to lower energy expenses for residents.
Since 2019, the Sacramento County Workers Benefit Council (WBC) has taken action for WSWA members to have an impact on climate change in the city. For example, the WBC agreed to have WSWA members be involved in the Mayor’s Commission on Climate Change (MCCC) that same year, to ensure the voice of the lowest-paid workers was heard as the City of Sacramento discussed its responsibility toward employing sustainable practices. Also in 2019, the WBC decided that it would use the data gathered from each of the weekly membership canvasses to make its own assessment of tree canopy needs based on concerns from members in the hottest and poorest parts of the city and as a result, began organizing professionals to provide demonstrations of tree planting techniques and sustainable maintenance practices to carry out at WSWA’s Office Central; these actions developed into monthly “Sustainability Sundays” by 2023.