Push Polling

Angelina Garcia

SOC 122

Word Count: 371

A.H.H.H. Push Polling

               I think that besides tabling, push polling was the most engaging of the tactics. This required us to call residents of Fresno and not only get information from them, but to inform them as well. The times that I had signed up to call were 11 A.M. and 1 P.M. on a Monday. Push polling was the most interesting experience because you never knew what exactly was going to happen; the person on the other line could hang up or get angry, you just did not know what reaction you were going to get. Fortunately for me, no one got angry. One man, who informed me that he could not hear very well, thought that I was trying to talk to him about a goat. In one call with a woman, she ended our conversation by telling me that she had learned something new. This was very exciting; letting people know how much of a problem food insecurity is in Fresno was one of our main goal as a group, and it was a nice thing to hear from the respondent.

              Initially, our survey was less informational and more about gathering information so we had to go back and change the questions. One of the question we added was "Did you know that 11 percent of U.S. households are at risk for hunger?" 71% of the respondents responded with "no" while 29% responded "yes." More than half of the respondents (57%) did not know that 1 in 5 children are at risk of hunger. When talking about Fresno in particular, 86% of the respondents thought that hunger and food insecurity was a problem in Fresno; only 25% of the respondents knew that in 2012 Fresno was ranked as the fifth hungriest metro in the nation. 90% of the respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that poverty is the leading cause of hunger and food insecurity. Also, 90% of the respondents thought that hunger and food insecurity was a problem in the United States; only 58% of respondents knew that 50 million Americans struggle to put food on the table. Out of 21 people who answered, only 5 had ever received or were currently receiving aid for food from the government.