Mainstreet Moms

Mainstreet Moms: Organize or Bust (MMOB) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of mothers and “honorary mothers” dedicated to political engagement through “bite-size actions” to ensure a better future for their children. Founded in 2004 by Megan Matson, a mother of three, MMOB focuses its grassroots efforts on three main political areas: protecting children's privacy from military recruiters, combating climate change, and promoting democracy through voting activism.

In 2004, MMOB partnered with Working Assets, a human rights foundation, to form the Leave My Child Alone coalition to shield students from military recruiting. Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 requires public secondary [Page 677]schools to release student contact information to military recruiters. In addition, the Pentagon's Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies program maintains a list of 16 – to 25-year-olds that is distributed to the Armed Services for recruitment purposes. MMOB's coalition educates parents about how to opt-out of these lists, provides tools for parents to work with their local school boards on privacy issues, and encourages organization by parents at the community level.

MMOB considers climate change a serious threat, calling it not merely an environmental issue, but an “everything issue.” To address the climate issue, MMOB calls for both awareness and action, persuading mothers to make time to educate themselves by refraining from watching television or reading fiction and asking their children to help with household chores. In February 2007, MMOB launched its Soup and Solutions campaign, in which local groups organize community soup dinners to educate citizens on what they believe are viable solutions to climate crisis and encourage local action. MMOB's Website also offers recommendations to help members organize their own dinner parties, book club meetings, or other events to address climate change.

MMOB also addresses voting issues through a number of venues. First, MMOB prompts youths to vote through their Vote@18: Moms Sign Up the Senior Class campaign, in which mothers visit high school classes to speak on the importance of voting and conduct on-the-spot voter registration. MMOB partnered with VoteTrustUSA and Working Assets to create Pollworkers for Democracy, an organization that recruits and trains individuals to work as paid pollworkers on election days. MMOB also partners with several voting rights organizations to form the Help America Vote… On Paper (HAVOP) coalition, which campaigns against the use of touch-screen Direct Record Electronic (DRE) voting machines on the basis that they are costly and prone to failure.

MMOB and HAVOP have organized local letter-writing campaigns, participated in litigation against DREs in California, and produced an informational video. Finally, MMOB created the Missouri Votes! campaign with author and professor Alan Gerber in 2004. Participants send personal letters and voter registration forms to single women and unregistered mothers.

MMOB's Website offers additional information and resources, including reading lists, guidelines for writing letters to editors, pre-made banners and flyers, and links to local voting information Websites.