Here Say is a project in community storytelling. We travel to a new place each week and ask people to share true stories about things we all experience: love, family, learning and more. To see where we've been, check out our interactive map.
One of the first people we ran into at the Capitol was right in the middle of a huge change-- one that affects the entire state! Nicole Galloway told us about her new appointment.
Yesterday I was announced as the new state auditor. I’m honored and I have a solemn obligation to serve the citizens of Missouri and I want to do that. The auditor’s office is unique because the findings and the recommendations that you make have a real impact in people’s lives. When you’re sending your kids to school, when you’re driving on the roads, the infrastructure that you’re building your business on. The auditor’s office gets to make recommendations to make government work better for you. I’m really excited about the opportunity and serving the citizens that way.
Bill Kempker loves to ride his motorcycle. He told us about how he’s trying to make a change to one of Missouri’s laws.
The only thing I wanna change is the helmet law. It’s just the right to choose whether we want to wear a helmet or not. I’m a member of Freedom of Road Riders, a motorcycle rights organization. That’s actually a big change for me because I spent quite a few years not going in to the capitol and just out riding my motorcycle. But I found it does take coming in here to get your rights back. You have to get up here to the capitol to speak your mind, to speak your views and get in to the capitol and let them know what you're saying. These people in here work for you, they don’t work for the government, they work for the people out here in the states. We get in there and we try to change their minds about what we do.
Joshua Chittum works with vulnerable kids and families in the Kansas City area. He told us about what it’s like to help people in the middle of transition.
This is a really big cliche, but change is one of the very few constants in my day to day job. I’m a childrens coordinator, so I work with children in case managment. And so, I see the stress and strain put on children going through the negative change in their life. We’ve had families though, when the children first come to live in our interim housing program they’re very resistant to open up and talk. Just this last summer, which was the first summer I worked there, I worked with a family the entire summer. We kind of had some challenges with the children in the family trusting others, trusting each other. By the end, when it was time for them to move in to permanent housing, you could definitely tell that our work had impacted them. They were excited to move in to permanent housing, but they were also gonna miss the adult support that they got at our organization.
For more stories about making a change, check out our interactive map here.
