What do park cleanups, coffee chats, and cardio bootcamps have in common? They’re all events that The Rachels Committee has held since Sheila began her city council journey.

For our third episode, we’re tracing our way through the human networks critical to a campaign with not just one, but TWO guest interviews. Mikaela Bartels & Lissette Alvarado, who’ve worked closely with Sheila even before running for City Council, help us identify the hallmarks of an engaged and embedded group.

Mikaela Bartels isn’t just a good mutual friend of Sheila and Jacqueline–she’s a Malden-based entrepreneur (and child life specialist) who tells us about her burgeoning small business, Yarnbug Hand Knits, where she designs and makes handmade knit crafts. We chat about how she and Sheila took an idea for a communal knitting club and created the provocatively named “Stitch and Bitch”, a (free) monthly gathering for people of all knitting abilities at Idle Hands Brewery in Malden. With over a year of running the event under their belts, the event is the perfect example of our show’s tagline in action: “if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can always make it yourself.”

As we learn, embracing a crafty, do-it-yourself approach is key to running a low-budget, high-reach campaign. Putting in the time to learn new creative tools like Squarespace for hosting her campaign website, Canva for designing the visual assets, and leveraging local businesses like CRG Graphics in Malden goes a long way toward spreading the word without breaking the bank in the process.

But Sheila didn’t just stop at palm cards and t-shirts. She brought her DIY mentality into the voter data arena to cobble together her own voter database from publicly available records at City Hall. By doing so, she sought to avoid a costly $600 pre-fab database subscription to the Democrat-operated “VoteBuilder” platform that’d also have forced her to change party registration from being a lifelong independent voter to Democrat outright. MassAlliance proved to be a valuable resource for this, with trainings on how to run a grassroots campaign. And let’s not forget the podcast arm to the campaign as well, which had us grappling with another set of tools.

For the second half of our episode, we break down what it means to take that creativity and DIY approach out on the campaign trail to canvas the neighborhood. To help us unpack that experience, we got to chat with fellow Maldonian and mayoral candidate, Lissette Alvarado. Inspired to run for office after seeking answers to community questions, we discuss the dos and don'ts of canvassing, and why it’s so important to get face to face with constituents.

“Sheila For Malden” is a product of people coming together and sharing their talents. Our show’s hosted and written by Sheila and Jacqueline. Additional scripting, producing, editing, and show art by David Riemer.

Visit SheilaForMalden.com for campaign news, updates, and to donate. Don’t forget to follow the show to be notified when our next episode airs in October.