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Quad City Residents Protest USPS Budget Cuts

Protestors line the street outside the downtown Moline post office.
Marianna Bacallao, WVIK News

Protestors gathered outside post offices in the Quad Cities and across the midwest today to demand funding for the US Postal Service. These demonstrations come as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is under fire for slowing mail delivery.

Sophia Fender holds a sign that reads "How Insecure is This Guy?" at a protest in downtown Moline.
Credit Marianna Bacallao, WVIK News

Cecilia O'Brien helped organize the protests in Davenport and downtown Moline this afternoon. She says that budget cuts to the post office hurt veterans, who make up a large portion of post office employees. 

"This is not the way to thank our veterans for their service, to make it so that their jobs are stressful and the seniors who are veterans and seniors in general can't get their medicine. There are people out in rural Iowa that are running out of medication because their drugs are not coming and it's not the carrier's fault." 

O'Brien, and the dozens of other protestors who disregarded a heat advisory today, are calling for Congress to pass a $25 billion relief bill that they say would permanently reverse delays and secure mail-in ballots for the November election. 

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Marianna Bacallao is WVIK Quad Cities NPR's 2020-2021 Fellowship Host/Reporter. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Mercer University's Center for Collaborative Journalism and served as Editor-in-Chief for the student newspaper, The Cluster.