Obama Volunteers Share the Power of Personal Stories

Linda Carey, whose children are grown, is a first-timer.

"I've never done anything like this," explained Carey, who said the aftermath of 9/11 and the treatment of terrorism suspects at Guantanamo caused her to take notice. "You go to his Web site, and he immediately invites you to become involved. He invites you to tell your story, and he trusts you to be okay."

The campaign sent the recruits to register voters the first afternoon they were on duty. To emphasize the business at hand, the organizers also set a goal of 10 registrations and instructed them to return to headquarters for a debriefing.

Nothing was easy, Carey and her teammates learned as they set out for unfamiliar territory on a hot afternoon. After an hour walking a gentrifying neighborhood with its mix of rehabbed and shuttered rowhouses, Malcolm Cotton said his meager total felt like a win. He called out, "I've got two already!"

"I've got one!" Elizabeth Sharpe-Taylor called back.

"I haven't even gotten any doors open yet," said Matthew Aiken, gloomily. "Look at that one -- it doesn't even have doors."

Walking the next block, Sharpe-Taylor stopped a pair of boys coming the other way.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Fourteen," one boy answered.

"How old are you," she asked the other one.

"Fourteen," he said.

Undeterred, she went on, "Are your parents registered to vote?"