NC woman starts grassroots push for pandemic relief

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    ASHEVILLE, NC (WLOS ) — An unlikely partnership in the U.S. Senate has formed. Lawmakers managed to get a temporary spending bill passed Friday. But Independent Bernie Sanders and Republican Josh Hawley indicated that next week they must get a vote on their amendment to provide working class Americans with another round of $1,200 stimulus checks or they will block government funding.

That money is exactly what many Americans want, a small shot in the arm just in time for the holidays. And a local woman has launched her own campaign to get it, taking her case straight to the Senate.

“Let me do what I can do as one little person, because if every person does something, something could change,” Denise Liberatori said.

Liberatori hopes her grassroots effort leads to checks in the mail.

“I called (U.S. Sen.) Thom Tillis and let him know that I would appreciate him helping, that I would appreciate his vote for a relief package that includes a stimulus,” Liberatori said.

Liberatori, a retired physical therapist assistant who worked at Mission Health for 19 years, said her focus now is the health of a nation and the many people who are looking for a little boost to bridge a big gap.

“A $1,200 stimulus is not going to save us all from financial ruin, it certainly would help,” Liberatori said.

Liberatori has reached out to immediate friends, asking them to call, too.

“They all responded, ‘Yeah, we’ll do it,'” Liberatori said.

Liberatori said she then decided to cover more ground, a one-person, citizen lobbyist with a cell phone.

“I went on my contact list and I pretty much texted everybody I knew and I said call Thom Tillis,” she said. “Let’s bombard him, let’s get something done, let’s take some power, try to get some help. And I said send this to your friends to call Thom Tillis’ office, so it kind of snowballed from there.”

Liberatori said somewhere around 50 contacts were made by her with promises to pass the word along. The hope is that over the next week of negotiations, all those voices and many more make their way to Capitol Hill and will be heard.

“Emotionally, it would help because we’d say, ‘Oh, our government understands, and they’re going to help us,'” Liberatori said. “Help is on the way, sort of like the vaccine you know, you have that little bit of relief the vaccine is coming.”

Efforts to reach Tillis for a statement about where he stands regarding the stimulus check aspect of any COVID-19 relief plan were unsuccessful.

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