Hundreds of volunteers in nearly two dozen states have been gathering in backyards and living rooms to plan rallies, press conferences, and meetings with lawmakers—all aimed at changing the conversation on climate change, and encouraging individual members of Congress to act. In all, volunteers have already held 99 meetings in communities across the country, with more to come.

When it comes to climate change, too many lawmakers refuse to accept the science—and the danger—we face. We can't make real progress on this issue until Congress is forced to acknowledge the problem, and in the coming weeks OFA volunteers are planning for some serious on-the-ground action to do just that.

Add your name to join the fight to call out climate deniers.

More than 1.4 million Americans added their names to Organizing for Action's petition demanding expanded background checks on gun sales. Last week, volunteers (including three survivors of gun violence) went to Washington to hand-deliver those names to Congress.

Watch the video about their journey—then share it with your friends.

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As a former member of Gabrielle Giffords’ staff and a survivor of the Tucson shooting, I’m on Capitol Hill today with a great group of fellow Organizing for Action volunteers, delivering petitions from supporters all across the country in support of common-sense gun violence prevention. We’ve been making the rounds, including meetings with Senator Dick Durbin and Representatives Nancy Pelosi and Mike Thompson.

It had been a really productive morning and we were on our way down the escalators out of the Capitol when I saw my senator, Jeff Flake, walking up the stairs right in front of us.

We already know each other, because he was very supportive of Congresswoman Giffords’ office. However, people in Arizona have been unhappy about his ‘no’ vote on the amendment that would have expanded background checks for gun sales. There’s been a lot of action on this issue in Arizona, so it was rather interesting running into him.

I was standing there in front of him with two other survivors of gun violence who introduced themselves–and to his credit he stopped and engaged in conversation with us for five or six minutes. We told him we were there to deliver 1.4 million petition signatures in favor of background checks for gun sales, and that the will of the people is behind us. The sense we got from him is that we’re still working on this. It’s not a closed door, so let’s engage. We said we’d love to sit down with him, look at the bill and talk about his concerns.

The bottom line is that he knows we’re out there and he knows we’re not going away. He’s taken a tremendous hit in polling—he even joked that he's now less popular than ‘pond scum.’ But we told him, ‘We don’t think you’re pond scum—we think you can come around to something that’s reasonable.’

The people who signed this petition are part of making the difference. When that many signatures are gathered, it shows how important this issue is to people. These people are working hard to represent us, and it absolutely shores them up. We said ‘We’ve got your back’ to members of Congress several times today, and they were all very welcoming, thanking us.

In fact, on a train below the Capitol, Senator John McCain rushed to board with us and I had the chance to say “Thank you!” for his courageous ‘yes’ vote on background checks for gun sales. Many of the folks on the train agreed, giving him a nice round of applause.

But we’re only delivering the petitions—it’s all across America that people are signing them. There is tremendous political will behind this, and these signatures are part of making a change.

It took longer than expected, but this afternoon we finished counting:

More than 1.4 million Americans signed our petition demanding expanded background checks for gun sales—by far the most in @ofa history.

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 7, 2013

Later this week, volunteers will personally deliver every one of those petitions to Congress. That's more than 1.4 million people who aren't backing down, and aren't going away.

How do you quantify the work of thousands of volunteers fighting to reduce gun violence?

There's no perfect way to measure the full impact, but the number of petitions gathered in support of background checks for gun sales—more than 750,000 as of last Friday—and the plummeting approval ratings of senators who are blocking popular reforms both point to the incredible impact supporters have had in just a few months.

But there's also the hundreds of grassroots events, and the countless conversations they've helped foster. From the nightly news to hometown newspapers, OFA supporters have kept the issue of gun violence in the spotlight, and kept the pressure on lawmakers to act.

We've put together a map of just some of the news coverage that OFA volunteers have helped drive over the past few month. Take a look:

When hundreds of thousands of people speak up, it doesn't go unnoticed.

This fight is far from over.