You’ve heard of Love, Pray, Vote – now it’s time for Glove, Pray, Vote!
Election campaigns can be tough, particularly for candidates and their families. So we’re inviting you to show your candidates some love this election season.
During general election season, candidates spend lots of time walking the streets of their constituencies, campaigning and talking to voters. In this wintery weather, this is a particularly chilly task. So what better way to bless candidates and show them that churches care, than by sending them a warm pair of gloves for their time on the campaign trail!
The all-inclusive love shown to us by God invites us to love our neighbours and those we disagree with. This election season, we can show love in action by showing we care about everyone in our communities.
So, what do you need to do to Glove Pray Vote?
- Join together as a community – perhaps a church congregation or small group.
- Find a complete list of the candidates standing in your area – you can go to Democratic Dashboard for this.
- Head to the website of your candidates, or for the party at a local level. Their address will usually be at the bottom of the webpage.
- Wrap up your gloves – shop bought, or even handmade if you’re feeling adventurous – and attach a small note of well wishes. Even a Merry Christmas would be nice! Make sure you let them know that you’ve done this for every candidate.
- Post or deliver them to your candidates. If you’re hosting a hustings, this would be a great opportunity to pass them over in person.
- Share about your gift on social media using #GlovePrayVote.
Important things to remember
To share out the love equally, you need to send a message to all of your local candidates and make sure that this is clear in your note. It’s about people rather than party politics. This is especially important if you’re doing this on behalf of a church group. Guidance on the lobbying act can be found in our hustings resource here.
Template Letter
Dear [Candidate’s Name]
We are a group of people from [name of church] who want to offer you our love and prayers this election season. We are aware this is a challenging time to be a politician, so we wanted to wish you a merry Christmas and bless you with this gift of gloves. They will hopefully prove useful during cold campaigning sessions!
We hope this offers you some positivity during an election where negativity is so rife. We have sent gloves to all candidates in this constituency because everyone deserves love, whether we agree or disagree with them politically.
If you want to encourage more people to do this elsewhere, please feel free to share this on social media with #GlovePrayVote.
