A photo of Kat Calvin with red shapes in the background.

Meet a Fellow: Kat Calvin

Meet A Roddenberry Fellow
Kat Calvin
May 10, 2019

Meet Kat, a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow

Kat Calvin is the founder of Spread The Vote, a nonprofit organization that aims to close the gap between registered voters and voter turnout by obtaining government-issued photo IDs, educating, and empowering voters. Today there are about 21 million eligible voters that do not have a photo ID. However, IDs are difficult and expensive to obtain. Did you know that you need a photo ID to apply for a job, housing, food at many food banks, a bed at a homeless shelter and much more? Many people are unable to obtain an ID themselves without personal and financial assistance, prohibiting them from gaining access to the IDs that they need to change their lives and go to the polls. That’s where Spread The Vote comes in.

“Spread The Vote fills a hole that doesn’t exist on the national landscape or in most communities. Given the effort and expense of obtaining IDs, there are a few local organizations that do the work in their communities and no national organization other than ours that helps people work through the entire process of obtaining an ID” Says Kat. “We found a way to do something that no one had before and now we are privileged to be able to work with groups of all kinds to help provide life-changing IDs to the members of their communities.”

During the 2019 Fellowship

Throughout the Fellowship, Kat will continue to expand Spread The Vote’s reach, help people get photo ID’s, prepare for the upcoming election and increase voter turn out. Spread the Vote is currently operating in nine states: Georgia, Virginia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Indiana, and North Carolina. Their goal in 2019 is to launch in at least six more states.

At Spread The Vote they create hyper-local chapters in each state, where they train volunteers to work within the community. This approach is unique to their project and has had great success. Kat hopes to continue building more chapters within states, further helping Americans gain access to IDs.

“Our hope is that more people and institutions recognized how important IDs are, and how difficult they are to get, and, rather than ignoring, rejecting, or punishing the people who do not have them, do what they can to help.”