Grand Rapids Organizers Use Bean Poll

Apr 7, 2011

There has been great response to the bean poll idea. Many have sent in pictures and stories about their bean poll. Newcomers Peter and Bernice Rynders from a Presbyterian church in Grand Rapids, MI sent in a report from their church fair.

“We had a really exciting church fair. We conduct the fair in our large dining room and there is a lot of room for people to move around and visit all the stations. We estimate that as many as 80 to 90 people visited our station and got involved in the vote. “

They made a stand of plastic tubes anchored in a wooden board to represent different budget categories.

“We explained to people what FCNL was doing and how you showed graphically what the actual distribution is. We gave out copies of your graph. ” They adapted the bean poll to suit their needs. ” . . . they took little colored round cereal pieces, like Kix cereal, and distributed them in the tubes to reflect their own values.We gave each participant 20 cereal pieces because we felt 10 pieces would be too few to help in making their decisions. We gave up the base-10 system, but the relative value still is shown. “

Their results were clear:

"Our church members’ distribution was almost the opposite of how the government distributes our tax dollars."

The picture above will be in the December Chimes, their monthly church newsletter. This is part of a general report on the Mission Fair. They also intend to reserve space in an upcoming issue when they will report on and promote their Peace and Justice Committee efforts. Their senior pastor commented that there was sermon material in the display,

" . . . the issue will remain alive and that is good."