For the sixth week of our preparation and survival meetings, we were joined by Kristin Ostly, a woman who is out there trying her best to help bring people together in this fight for our rights. She has established her own group that is out there fighting back against some of the major issues our country is currently facing. She is also a part of an organization called American Prosper that she described as a digital platform that is decentralized that allows people to organize into different groups.
The topic of discussion this week was about community organization. This is one of the most important factors, because without a solid community we are left feeling alone. We might come to feel like there is nothing we can possibly do because we are just one person, or we are just one small family. But when we make the effort to come together with like-minded people, we find out that we are not so alone after all. We become more able to do those things that we thought we could not do before. We are stronger together, in every sense. Whether our aim is to fight back against tyranny and the striping away of our rights, or to prepare for what may soon come, being divided is never the answer.
Her story began during the covid lockdowns. For the first year and a half, her angst grew stronger by witnessing the conditions happening in her town. They were shutting down any outdoor activities, even things such as hiking, where contact with other people would likely be limited. They did not want people to be together or to be out and about enjoying themselves in any way. I think we all know exactly how she felt during these times. And this is something that none of us will ever forget. During this time, she was also struggling with her business. She was stuck at home, not able to properly run her business, and it was drastically affected because of this.
In July of 2021, she had made the decision to attend one of Clay Clark’s events in LA, the Reawaken America Tour. While at the conference, she heard many people talking about putting together various levels of organization on the national level, the regional level, the state level, and the individual level. Kristin said that the one thing that stuck out to her the most about this was how they continued to come back to the idea of the individual. She said they kept asking the questions of what the individual could do right now, and what could the individual person do to help the community.
As she was leaving LA, she discovered that the mayor had reimplemented the mask mandate. And she became angry at the fact that people were just putting their masks back onto their faces without a second thought. No one was bothering to question anything. It was in this moment that she decided enough was enough, and something needed to be done.
Soon after, she got together with some of her friends to try to come up with some ideas. She was done with the charade, and she wanted people to stand up. They formed a small group and put themselves out there, and through word of mouth, slowly it began to grow. The next meeting that they held expanded out to 8 people. The week after that they had 25 people show up. And by the fourth week they had managed to grow to 150 people.
Kristin also created a private Facebook group to help bring more people in. But they take caution with the content they post there, and what is shared there is mostly just the locations of their meetings as well as any calls to action that they may have. And now they have a text chain that is sent out between all of the members to help keep everyone updated. They initially began meeting at a rental space, and this lasted for about 3 months. They then moved to a church where they held their meetings for close to 6 months. And now they are using a restaurant banquet to hold their meetings. They have done whatever they needed to do to keep these meetings going.
Once their group began to grow, what Kristin soon realized was that everyone shared the same view and thought that they were alone in this fight. Everyone had been struggling to see how they could possibly manage to get involved in any way and were unsure as to how many people were actually in their community who felt the way they did about the state of our country. But after coming together they understood that their numbers were larger than they could have hoped for.
People showed up with many different agendas. Everything from election interference to concerns over nurses and students being forced to get vaccinated. Kristin could see that were many things that needed to be addressed. So, to help bring these issues into focus, they created subcommittees based on the people’s interests.
Eventually these subcommittees condensed into a few basic subgroups. One of these groups was given the task of handling the issues of elections, governing officials, the school boards, the city council, the county council, and the health department. They came to see that these officials were essentially doing whatever they wanted to and had no accountability. They did not want to listen to what any of their constituents were saying.
One challenge that they managed to overcome was map redistricting. They were able to get a district map that was created from the county census. They wrote the county supervisors and ended up taking a vote on the maps to redistrict them, and the map that they voted for is the one that passed. They also started bringing people in for vetting. When they had elections coming up, they would take the candidates and go door to door, passing out flyers and talking with people. And because of those efforts they ended up winning two seats.
They have someone new on the school board as well who is taking the necessary action to hold everyone else accountable. Someone who has been really good about staying on top of the curriculum, as well as making sure that the children are not being exposed to ideas that have no place in the school system. They are slowly making the transition and getting people into these positions within the city, the county, and the school board, who they know will listen to them. They have also been successful in switching out their sheriff, and they are beginning to open up discussions regarding constitutional sheriffs.
“This is a place for people to get together. And my focus is that I’m here to maintain and regain our God given and constitutionally backed liberties, rights, and freedoms. That’s what we’re here for.” -Kristin
Now Kristin is in the process of forming a list of people within the community who hold certain skill sets. People who know about electricity, solar, and water. People who are ranchers, master gardeners, and people who have the skills to help sustain life and help sustain the community. Her goal with this is to try to figure out what it is that everyone can do as an individual to help each other out, and what resources each person has to bring to the table. And in doing so, this will not only build a stronger community, but it will allow their community to be protected in a time of disaster or societal collapse. And this is something that we are all capable of doing. We all have the power and the ability to do what she is doing. We all have something valuable to bring forth.
Josh also talked about a great way to help form a group like this of your own. When you are out there trying to meet people, use the rule of three. If only two or three people show up to your meeting initially, tell each of those people to go out there and find three more people to bring in. And even if they are only able to find one person, that is still growth. And if each new person that comes continues to go out and pull in a few more people, before you know it, your group will be large enough to truly start taking action.
One of our members, Rosemarie, also talked to us about some of the things she has going on within her own community. Where she lives, they have been coming together in local groups even before the lockdowns. They started out with a bonfire group, where people in the community would come and hang out together around a bonfire and talk about the issues and ideas on their minds. And right now, they have multiple groups going for various reasons. They have a building group, a radio communications group, a garden group, a health and healing group, and a homeschool group, just to name a few. And they also make it a priority to get the children involved as much as possible.
Now, while they are at the bonfire group, they will vet people, find out what their skills and interests are, and from there they will find the appropriate group or groups to place them in. And once every 3 months they will get all of the groups together. This is the perfect example of how to successfully bring your community together. It doesn’t have to be held at a big venue, and it can be as casual as you want it to be. The point is to get out there, meet people, find common interests, and find ways in which you all can all come together and prepare, as well as find ways to fight back against the tyranny that is slowly taking its hold. We are all in this together, and together we will stand strong.