John W. Adkisson | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Organizing Project interns Ashley Taggart of Roanoke (right) and Naomi Huntington of Christiansburg go door to door Friday along Sunflower Drive in Vinton. The two women are in a summer internship program that is surveying Virginians about health care.

Virginia Organizing Project intern Naomi Huntington of Christiansburg (right) talks Friday with Jean Peters of Vinton about health care reform and alternative energy while canvassing in Vinton. The project is gathering information on people's experiences with accessing health care.

Naomi Huntington has never had to worry about her personal health insurance.

She's always been covered.

While the 22-year-old was aware of the debate surrounding health care reform, she really hadn't given much thought to the personal struggles that so many people have endured in trying to access health care.

"I had no idea what an overwhelming concern it was in people's lives," she said.

Huntington, of Christiansburg, began to fully understand the issue when she signed up with the nonprofit activist group Virginia Organizing Project to talk about health care reform during a canvassing effort. Huntington is one of 40 interns throughout the state earning $11 an hour to go door to door to talk about health care reform. She is one of four assigned to canvass the Roanoke, Salem and Vinton areas.

From knocking on doors and talking to people in the area, Huntington said she has learned just how much some people struggle to afford health care. Countless stories about the cost of medication, or people who have lost their health insurance because they lost their job, have changed how Huntington looks at health care in the United States.

"Until you start finding out the little stories and realizing how it starts to add up, it's hard to understand," she said.

The six-week effort, which will end July 23, is also gauging community interest in climate change and the desire to encourage renewable energy and energy efficiency as a way to create jobs.

This is the second summer the Virginia Organizing Project has sent teams of interns into Virginia neighborhoods to gauge interest on certain political topics.

Last year, during the presidential campaign, the questions were geared at finding out just what issues were important to Virginians, said Julie Blust, spokeswoman for Virginia Organizing Project.

"A lot of what we were doing last year was engaging the issues that people were concerned with," Blust said. "It was an election year, and there was a lot of attention around health care, but it wasn't the only issue."

During last year's canvass, Virginia Organizing Project found that 64 percent of people they talked to identified health care as the most important issue.

Given the interest in focusing on health care, this year the project decided to revisit and expand its efforts. That the Obama administration has made a priority of overhauling the health care system through legislation by the end of the year only served as another reason to focus on the topic.

"This year we obviously have some legislative efforts to point out, and we have a more concrete idea of what health care reform will look like," Blust said.

Specifically, Virginia Organizing Project is asking people to support a government-run public insurance option in any legislative effort for health care reform.

So far this year, canvassers have found that 78 percent of people say health care is a very important or the most important issue in their lives.

The stories about how health care is affecting a particular person's life seem to come easily after asking a simple question about how important an issue it is, Huntington said.

"People are eager to talk about health care reform because it affects them on a personal level," she said.

Ashley Taggart, another intern based in Roanoke who has been knocking on doors with Huntington, said sometimes people really just want to share their personal struggles with accessing health care. And often, they are recent accounts.

"You don't even need to ask them to share a story, they just say, 'Oh my gosh health care, let me tell you about it.' They really get into it and need to tell you," said Taggart, 21.

A senior at Roanoke College, Taggart said she has knocked on an average of 100 doors a day during the past several weeks. It's an exercise that has given her a much stronger interest in health care and community organizing, she said.

"I figured this would be a good trial run," she said. "Honestly, when I joined, I'd seen what the issues were, but I didn't know too much. ... Now, that I've been out here, it's gotten a lot more interesting."

The experience has also bolstered Huntington's interest in community activism.

Having graduated from the University of Virginia this spring, Huntington said she is headed to Wake Forest University School of Law in the fall. This summer has been her first experience as a canvasser, but she said she hopes to use her law degree to stay in public service.