LOS ANGELES -- After a number of leadership changes that have led to a period of transition for the organization, Equality California (EQCA) has recently brought on board a number of staff members to help with the next phase of advocacy.

EQCA has hired 19 field staff who have been working every to help the organization prepare for a campaign to protect the FAIR Education Act. The new staff have been hitting the streets and the phones to help identify 25,000 new supporters of marriage equality.

Rebekah Orr, EQCA director of communications, said today that the field staff members are currently located in Palm Springs, San Francisco and Los Angeles, with plans to grow the team throughout the state in the coming months.

Alice Kessler, former EQCA government relations director, through a partnership with the government-relations firm DiMari VanVleck and Brown, has joined EQCA to lead the legislative work and the activities of the organization's political action committees, including efforts to protect the FAIR Education Act.

Toni Broaddus, a veteran LGBT civil rights leader who served as executive director of the Equality Federation from 2005 to 2010 and a former program director at EQCA, has signed on to lead EQCA's new public-education project called The Breakthrough Conversation, which is being funded by a grant from the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund.

Also joining the team will be Amy Simon, a leader in LGBT public opinion research. Simon will begin comprehensive polling and focus groups that will form the foundation of The Breakthrough Conversation and help EQCA to fight back against attacks on the FAIR Education Act.

Finally, Roey Thorpe, director of Strategic Projects for the Equality Federation Institute, has joined EQCA's transition team to support the board in its search for a new executive director. An activist for social justice for over 25 years, Roey has served as the executive director of Basic Rights Oregon as well as Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon and worked as a field organizer for Empire State Pride Agenda.

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