It's the week before election day, and Melissa Molina is going door-to-door in Bay Village.
At each house, she knocks on the door. If anyone answers, she checks with them to make sure they have a plan for voting.
Molina is a member of Grassroots Resistance, which has mobilized this election to canvass on behalf of Democratic candidates.
The group was founded after Hillary Clinton's loss in the 2016 presidential election.
Susan Shaw is one of the leaders of the group. She was there when it started with about a dozen women. Grassroots Resistance has grown to a mailing list of five hundred. Shaw said they hold a meeting once a month.
"We're half therapy session and half activism session," She said.
Brigid Boettler has been a member of Grassroots Resistance since moving back to Ohio with her family in 2020. She said the in-person meetings add to that feeling.
"Since we're so digital now and you know the rhetoric on social media is so intense and so polarized and so to come together in person like that is therapy just because it's also meaningful connection with other humans that we don't get a lot of anymore," Boettler said.
Shaw said the organization saw two big spikes in membership; one following the Dobbs decision in 2022 that repealed Roe v. Wade and another following the 2024 presidential election, when Donald Trump was elected to his second term as president.
Anne Callahan joined the group two years ago. She said she knows some people have felt overwhelmed by national politics.
"But once you figure out change starts at home and change starts in your backyard," Callahan said. "'Cause there's so much you can't control, but you can control and have input in your schoolboard, on your city council."
Grassroots Resistance is a partisan group, but there are other grassroots organizations simply focused on getting everyone out to vote, like the League of Women Voters.
"And voting is grassroots because a democracy really only works if people vote," said Mary Robbins, president of the League in Akron.
She said getting people engaged hasn't been much of an issue this election cycle, because they're worried.
"They don't like the way things are going right now," Robbins said. "The prices, the war, the threats to our democratic norms and ways that we've been doing things really upset, especially the older ones that, you know, many of us are retired and we have the time to work on these kinds of things."
Finding volunteers has been easy, Robbins said, but that doesn't mean the people they reach out to are always receptive. She's come across a lot of voters who feel their vote doesn't matter, because they only vote for president.
"The local elections are where it is decided your trash pickup, your lighting in the streets, all the local things, the schools, all that is in local politics. And when you ignore that, things can go to seed very quickly."
Not everyone is seeing the same level of enthusiasm.
Reverend Ray Greene is the executive director of The Freedom Bloc in Akron.
"I think people are disengaged," he said. "They are disengaged from the lies, the no results, and ultimately just the BS. They are engaged this time because their life depends on it."
Greene led a successful campaign to get three charter amendments on the ballot in Akron, two of them focused on making housing more affordable and accessible.
Greene believes the initiatives are ultimately the best motivator to get residents to the polls.
"And that's what these ballot initiatives is, that's the work that we do, is we go talk to the people and give them a reason show up to the polls," he said. "And while they're at the polls, they vote for a candidate, that's cool too, hopefully that candidate aligns with their issues and not just a popularity contest."
Back in Bay Village earlier this week, Melissa Molina was able to talk to residents at about a third of the doors she knocked on. But, those that did answer told her they already had a plan to vote, and many had voted early. Early voting in Ohio this year is 30 percent higher than it was in the previous midterm election in 2022.
