America turns 250 years old tomorrow.
I have been sitting with that number. Two hundred and fifty years. The people who built this country argued, compromised, and agreed on a framework where citizens have a voice. Where laws can be challenged. Where people can show up and change things.
That framework does not sustain itself. Somebody has to pay attention.
I joined the League of Women Voters of Washington County, Arkansas about four years ago. I still sometimes feel like the new person in the room. The League has been doing this work since 1920, the same year women won the right to vote nationally. That is not a coincidence. It was founded on the premise that participating in democracy is not optional if you want democracy to work.
I run a business. I have for 27 years. Everything I have built, every client relationship, every person I have hired, every risk I have taken, happened inside a system where the rule of law works and institutions hold. I did not build that system. I showed up into it. The least I can do is help keep it standing.
What I have learned from four years in the League is that civic engagement is not separate from the rest of your life. It is the same skills: showing up, building relationships, communicating clearly, doing the work even when results are slow. The same things that make a business last are the things that make a democracy last.
On the 250th birthday, I am not feeling nostalgic. I am feeling responsible.
What 250 Years Means
Two hundred and fifty years is not just a milestone. It is a reminder that the things worth having require maintenance.
Most of us did not grow up thinking about democracy as something that needs tending. It was just there, the way infrastructure is just there until it isn’t. You drive across a bridge without thinking about who built it, who inspects it, who fights for the budget to keep it standing. And then one day the bridge needs work and nobody has been paying attention.
Democratic institutions are the same. They were built by people who argued about every detail, who understood how fragile the whole thing was, and who put safeguards in place precisely because they knew that power without accountability tends to go wrong. Those safeguards do not maintain themselves. They require people who understand what they are for and show up to protect them.
Two hundred and fifty years is a long time. It is also not very long at all when you consider how many systems of government have come and gone in human history. The ones that lasted did not last because the framework was perfect. They lasted because enough people in each generation decided that the work of citizenship was worth doing.
That is the number I have been sitting with. Not a celebration exactly. More of a reckoning.
Why a Business Owner Joined the League of Women Voters
I did not join because I had extra time. I joined because I finally understood that this is part of the work.
When I think about everything I have built over 27 years at The Belford Group, the business decisions, the client relationships, the team I have hired and developed, all of it happened inside a functioning system. Contracts are enforceable. Courts work. Employees have rights. Clients have recourse. I did not build any of that. I walked into it and built my business on top of it.
That is easy to forget when things are working. It is easy to treat the system as a given and focus entirely on what you are building inside of it. I did that for a long time.
What changed for me was paying attention. The more I watched what was happening in local government, in state government, in national conversations about voting rights and civic access, the harder it became to look away. Not because I wanted to become a political person. Because I am a practical person, and practically speaking, the system that makes my business possible needs people to pay attention to it.
The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan organization. That matters to me. It is not about one party or one candidate. It is about voter registration, voter education, making sure people know when elections are happening and what is on the ballot, and advocating for policies that make it easier for eligible voters to participate. That is foundational work. It is not glamorous. It is not fast. It is exactly the kind of work that determines whether the framework holds.
I have now been doing it for four years. It has made me a better business owner in ways I did not expect, the same way everything that requires you to show up consistently and care about outcomes you cannot fully control tends to do that. We Just Celebrated 27 Years. Here’s the Trap We Refuse to Fall Into is worth reading if you want to understand more about how I think about showing up for the long term.
What Showing Up Looks Like
Civic engagement does not require running for office. It requires showing up consistently for the work that most people assume someone else is handling.
Here is what it has looked like for me practically.
It has looked like attending meetings when I would rather be doing something else. The League meets regularly. There are committee calls and planning sessions and voter registration events. Most of them are not exciting. None of them are optional if you actually want to be part of the organization rather than just affiliated with it.
It has looked like learning things I did not know I needed to learn. Arkansas has specific laws around voter registration that I did not understand before I joined the League. Local elections happen on schedules most people do not track. School board races, city council seats, ballot measures: these are the decisions that shape daily life in a community, and they are decided by whoever shows up. Often that is a very small number of people.
It has looked like having conversations I would not have had otherwise. The League brings together people from different backgrounds, different political perspectives, different reasons for caring about civic participation. Those conversations have made me think more carefully about assumptions I did not know I was making.
And it has looked like doing the work even when results are slow. Voter registration numbers go up and down. Turnout in local elections is discouraging. Progress on policies that make voting more accessible moves slowly. This is not different from building a business. You do the work because it matters, not because it is immediately gratifying.
Two podcast episodes we produced earlier this year are worth your time if you want to understand what is happening in Arkansas right now and why it matters to people who live and work here. Listen to Democracy in Action and our bonus episode Go Freaking Vote.
On the 250th birthday of this country, I am not interested in nostalgia. I am interested in the question every generation has to answer for itself: are you going to show up for the thing that makes everything else possible?
That is the question I keep coming back to. And my answer, four years into this work, is yes.
If you are curious about getting involved with the League of Women Voters of Washington County, Arkansas, you can learn more at lwvar.org.
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