On January 25, 2025, twenty-eight people gathered in the Chippewa Valley with a shared conviction: democracy works only when people show up for it. That evening, Chippewa Valley Indivisible was born — part of the national Indivisible movement, rooted in western Wisconsin, and built on the belief that ordinary neighbors can hold their elected officials accountable.

No one in that room could have predicted what would come next — that within months, CVI would grow to thousands of members, sustain weekly visibility actions for over a year, draw national media attention, and become one of the most active civic organizations in the region.

But it started here, with 28 people who decided that showing up matters. Everything that followed grew from that first meeting.