By Jaedolyn Loftus, State College Friends Middle School Student
During a youth advocacy workshop in Lancaster PA on October 24th 2025, Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade told a group of middle and high school students interested in activism about the importance of telling a story and giving real world examples while lobbying, how telling someone your story is more likely to sway your elected officials to your side and make them remember you and your cause. Stories are a more effective tactic when you’re lobbying because they have actual emotion in them, not just giving them numbers and statistics that most government officials won't remember as well. Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade also told them that as a representative and activist he has had a lot of experience with hearing others stories and telling other politicians the narratives of his constituents and that statistics are important stories are even more so.
Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade gave us an example of this and told us the story of a woman who came to him for help because she was paying a lot for a small, old apartment for her and her kids after getting out of an abusive situation and when she went to Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade for help her landlord found out. He was upset she went to talk to someone about it so he evicted her. After this she was homeless with her kids for about a year as she and Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade tried to find her a new apartment. However, even though they reached out to 30+ apartments and landlords and only eleven got back to them, in the end most of those landlords did not let her live there because they could see that she was previously evicted. By sharing her story she was able to convince Rep. Izzy Smith-Wade to start trying to make a law where all past evictions are completely private so this does not happen to more people.
People's stories like that not only help someone understand how challenges affect those in their community, but also make the problems feel more real and the people affected more human. When lobbying it's important to not only educate our elected officials on the topics we are trying to get them to support the bill or cause you are lobbying for, but also make them feel like they are more responsible for fixing the issue. When faced with actual human emotion and real situations that no people should ever be in, politicians are more likely to actually care about your topic and take action, and if the person your lobbying keeps trying to change the subject you should politely but firmly bring the conversation back to the topics you are advocating for.
As important as stories and real world scenarios are when lobbying, it's important to also give some statistics and to put your narratives into perspective and help our government officials understand the scale of the things happening to us and the people around us every day. However you should try to balance the two so it's about 75%-80% story and real examples and 25%-20% statistics and numbers. A simple way of doing this is to add the numbers into your story and also leave a polished copy of the story and statistics with them when you leave, so that they can reread the information when you're gone if they care strongly about what you're fighting for.
Telling stories and narratives while advocating for change will almost always be the most important and successful part of your lobbying visit. When telling our experiences to our government officials we must remember to add numbers to make them better understand fighting for and to get them to support it with us. This is a vital part of convincing our elected officials to support our causes when fighting for the change we want in our society.