CUYAHOGA FALLS, OH—Hundreds turned out to the Akron Tea Party Tax Day Rally this past Sunday, where the Values Bus was front and center.
Now entering its fourth month on the road, our nationwide tour Your Money, Your Values, Your Vote continues into its 16th state this week: California.
A joint project of The Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council, the tour has thus far hosted events in 50 cities across the nation with a direct audience of over 28,000 people—not counting the buzz on social networks, media coverage, or the fact that the bus itself is a rolling billboard!
The Values Bus most recently rolled through Pennsylvania and Ohio for week-long statewide trips. Stop after stop, these tour events bring together a cross-section of America. From active retirees to young fathers with their kids, from college students to businesswomen taking a few minutes out of their busy schedules, everyone benefits from the voter registration opportunities and solutions to our nation’s critical issues on board the Values Bus.
As in North Carolina, media coverage from local reporters has often been fair and accurate. Allied News spoke to Grove City College students who were busy registering to vote:
At 20, Erin Burlew, a sophomore majoring in accounting, admitted that she still had not voted but planned on it for this year’s presidential election, she said.
“I haven’t been as informed as I should be,” she added. That changed when a Family Research Council worker “grabbed me between classes.”
In Ohio, the Toledo Blade related the scene in Perrysburg when the Values Bus visited on an overcast day that cleared just as the local event began:
Brad Reynolds and his three children braved chilly wind and drizzly rain to join about 150 people who gathered in Hood Park for a Perrysburg Tea Party Tax Day Rally early Saturday afternoon, on the eve of traditional Tax Day.
“I am here first of all to teach my kids about liberties,” Mr. Reynolds, 48, a self-employed carpenter from Maumee, said with his children, ages 4, 6, and 8 looking on. “And I think the government is taking away too much of our liberties.”
Hard-working Americans like Reynolds inspired this tour—those who may not care much for politics but care enough about our country to raise their voices where it can make a difference.
At every stop along the way, we meet more of the people who make America great, such as Josh Dzurko, a 17-year-old student whose admiration for our Constitution (what he calls “the operating manual for America”) led him to create Restore My Constitution wristbands, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the Wounded Warrior Project.
Certainly the tour occasionally runs into detractors. Still, our mission is clear: We’ll be on the road through Election Day, spreading the message that America needs strong families and a strong economy to restore prosperity.
Visit ValuesBus.com for the latest schedule of events for our nationwide tour Your Money, Your Values, Your Vote. Click here for a complete photo gallery of the bus tour.
For photos from the road, check out the galleries Heritage Action for America and Family Research Council have shared online.