Week 7 FAEW

Monday, Illinois Governor Quinn was supposed to come to our food bank for a press event after he lost a bet to Governor Scott Walker over the Packers winning the Superbowl. Friday (2/18) we prepped for the event, decorated the entry way in green and gold paraphernalia only to find come Monday morning that the event had been canceled with all the chaos in Madison. Protesters were under the impression that Governor Walker was going to be coming to FAEW and had organized a protest outside of our offices for 9:30 am Monday. My supervisor, Gina, got word of this on Sunday after Governor Quinn's secretaries called to cancel the event. Quinn's offices made the decision to cancel the press event because they did not want to turn a positive event that benefited the community in to a negative one. Gina contacted the media immediately to notify them of the change in plans and then had to do some preventative crisis communication and contact the unions that that had organized this protest. The unions had posted it on their blog site to invite protesters to join in, our communications department commented back simply stating that no politicians would be at our offices but if they would like to donate canned goods to support our "Can the Bill" campaign they are more than welcome too.

When it came down to it, about seven protesters did gather in front of our offices. They walked in to donate canned goods and asked if Governor Walker was going to be at our location. The protesters did have signs but they were not picketing. MPD was notified and police officers came to tell the protesters that they were on private property and if they would like to protest they have the right to on the public sidewalk. All of the protesters did leave, I think most of them were just gathering outside to discuss the events in Madison since they were not picketing/chanting.

This experience on Monday was a good way to see how an organization reacts to something that could potentially turn in to bad publicity and or a minor "crisis". When I spoke with my supervisor about what happened I asked if we had posted anything on our social networking pages to tell the public that Walker would not be at our offices and she said that our VP (Bonnie) had asked us to refrain from doing that since it could come off as though we do not support Walker. Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin services 36 counties in Wis. so to say that we did not support Gov. Walker could be damaging to our reputation. Needless to say, this was most of the "water cooler" talk on Monday. Employees lingered around windows to see if any additional protesters would show, but in the end it was a quiet Monday and what could have been a crisis was avoided and handled professionally. Now it looks like Governor Quinn's arrival will be sometime in late March or early April. Long after the Superbowl has ended but hopefully after some of this heated debate in Madison cools down. I felt this was good PR on the behalf of Governor Quinn and FAEW because we quietly canceled the event and did not comment on any political stances. Hopefully when Governor Quinn does come help our food bank it will be in good spirits for everyone.