Cory Booker announces Iowa eight-week training program to tap volunteers

Wyatt Dlouhy

Presidential candidate Cory Booker listens to a member of the audience following a community forum at at the African American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids on Friday, February 8, 2019. New Jersey Senator Cory Booker announced his bid for President on February 1, 2019.

Sarah Watson, Politics Editor

The campaign of presidential-nomination hopeful Cory Booker will try to tap Iowa volunteers this summer by hosting an eight-week leadership training program in the coming months, the campaign announced this week.

Booker’s “Justice Academy” is an eight-week program focused on educating volunteers on issues central to Booker’s campaign such as criminal justice and voting rights, and would enlist those volunteers to recruit others, host events, and lead outreach on an issue of their choice in four early primary/caucus states – including Iowa.

A start date has not yet been announced.

Volunteers enlisting in the program can sign up online. At the start of the program, participants would travel to campaign headquarters in Urbandale for an opening training session and participate in a national study hall program, which includes regular webinars and suggested readings. Volunteers would also coordinate with local organizers, including in the Iowa area, said the Booker campaign’s Iowa communications director, Tom Pietrykoski.

Other campaigns have also hosted trainings in their search for volunteers and supporters in a caucus field with more than 20 candidates vying for the nomination.

Kamala Harris’ campaign conducted trainings specifically at Iowa colleges and universities in April.

Several campaigns are also looking for interns to work during the summer, as many college and high school students are on hiatus until the fall. Booker’s campaign said it pays interns $15 an hour and offers unpaid internships. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is hiring both paid and unpaid interns.