Why I Hustle: Emma Akpan
Growing up, I was in church at least three times a week for choir practice, youth meetings, and of course Sunday morning service. There, I fit. My earliest memories of church were of Sunday School: the large print manuals had pictures of children that looked like me, and the words interpreted scripture in a way I could understand. I hoped to carry those words and stories to others.
In college, I taught Bible study at a women’s shelter. I thought that if I could interpret Scripture in a way that was comforting or insightful, people wouldn’t have to suffer as much. Naturally, I chose to attend seminary after college, enrolling into Duke Divinity School immediately after graduating from the University of Michigan.
I moved from Ann Arbor to Durham, North Carolina, excited about digging into old text and learning more about my faith. I spent the first week at orientation, listening to intelligent sermons, meeting new classmates from across the world, buying really thick books with philosophical words I didn’t understand, and loving life in the South with its 90 degree summers. I was ready.
A week after I drove away from Ann Arbor, my aunt called me. “You need to find a way to get home. Jackie died in her sleep last night.”
Jackie was my older sister, and she was 29 at the time. I remember falling on the floor and clutching the rug immediately, because I was blindsided by this one. How could a woman die at 29? How am I supposed to live with the reality that I no longer had my sister? And how dare God send me all the way to North Carolina to profess my faith if God was going to put my family through this?
I went into seminary thinking spiritual needs will solve problems, but I quickly learned that physical and external forces impact people’s faith and lives. After my sister’s death, I wanted to focus on the physical needs of my community by learning and understanding policy. My sister was a poor Black woman who died of a treatable illness, and it was not our faith or lack thereof that caused her death, it was barriers to a broken health care system.
I became a volunteer with Planned Parenthood after graduating from seminary. I learned as a canvasser at Planned Parenthood that we can make an impact on women’s health care and telling our stories about what happens when women have inadequate health care coverage. I did that by contacting other voters to tell them these stories, by walking and calling them, lobbying at the legislature, and attending rallies. The more stories I listened to of women trying to access healthcare, the more I wondered: if Jackie’s voice could have been heard, would she still be here today?
In 2016, Planned Parenthood piloted Hustle, the new peer-to-peer texting tool to contact our volunteers. I was so excited because people were not picking up their phones, but I could text my volunteers on my own personal cell phone — very clunkily, I might add — by writing a script in my phone and copying it and pasting to other phone numbers. However, Hustle helped me realize that we can continue to develop efficient ways to communicate with people that meets them where they are.
I once used Hustle to ask my volunteers to write a letter to the editor about why North Carolina should expand Medicaid, essentially asking them to share their story over text. I only had a list of 189 existing volunteers, but I got thirty people to agree to write one, and ten people actually did. Through Hustle, I was able to help others develop their story on why people should have more access to healthcare, and connect with others who wanted healthcare reform.
My favorite part about organizing at Planned Parenthood was after the long hours of calling hundreds of supporters, and spending hours in the heat collecting signatures, I found my people. I made lifelong colleagues through the relationships I had with my volunteers, and it would not have happened if we didn’t do the work of contact as many people as we could. Hustle made it easier to contact more supporters, and I joined the team at Hustle because I wanted to train and guide other campaigns to use a powerful and innovative way to communicate, to share the joy I had with finding volunteers to advocate for women’s health care.
The more people we reach with our stories, the better chance we have that a story will motivate someone to volunteer or run for office and be active in culture change.
And Hustle is Hiring.
We’re looking for highly motivated people looking to use a new technology for social change. If you believe that reaching people where they are is the best way to start a conversation or share your story, we want to talk to you about joining our sales, engineering or talent teams.
You can view our open roles at hustle.com/careers
