WESTERLY — From Westerly to West Greenwich and from Change.gov to MoveOn.org, the Internet continues to play a role in uniting the nation online and face to face – like the 13 people gathered Thursday night in the Misquamicut home of Barbara and Jonathan Fast.

The Fasts, who campaigned for the Obama-Biden ticket in New Hampshire during the final days of the election, were so inspired by the experience and by the election of Barack Obama as the country’s 44th president that they wanted to continue their grassroots volunteerism.

So they opened their doors for Thursday night’s house party — one of thousands held simultaneously across the country — organized to help launch a new national campaign, “Real Voices for Change.”

The gathering was organized by MoveOn.org, a national nonprofit political action group that boasts 4.2 million members and encourages interactive dialogue. Members are urged to connect online and in person to discuss national issues such as renewable energy, health care and the economy.

The party brought together people from Westerly, East Greenwich, North Kingstown and Lyme, Conn., determined to support the new administration by remaining active in the political process and encouraging others to do the same.

They listened to a nationally aired webcast, brainstormed ways to support the new administration, shared stories of their involvement in the campaign, took lots of photos to post online, circulated sign-up sheets and vowed to meet again to keep momentum going. Uniting neighbors — especially those in the southern Rhode Island, southeastern Connecticut area — is a goal, they said.

“The experience in New Hampshire brought me such a feeling of hope and possibility that I wanted to continue,” said Barbara Fast, a Unitarian clergy person for Westminster Church in East Greenwich. “I wanted to gather with people in the community who also believe in the core beliefs of our country.”

Westerly resident Marguerite Long, who plans to be in Washington on Jan. 20 for the inauguration of the 44th president, said she had seen president-elect Obama speak twice when he was in Rhode Island. Even though she waited in line for nearly three hours each time, she said the feeling of hope and happiness that permeated the crowds far outweighed the wait.

Long said she feels very hopeful these days, not only for herself, but also for the future of the country and for her grandchildren.

Long, a onetime union chief for Westerly Public School teachers, said she’s interested in making suggestions to the administration about ways to help how to solve the crisis currently going on in Detroit with U.S. auto makers. Being involved with MoveOn.org allows her that opportunity, she said.

Diane Goldsmith of Misquamicut told how she awoke the day after the election repeating to herself, “Barack Hussein Obama is our president,” over and over again.

“I just kept smiling, and repeating it,” said Goldsmith, adding, “but there’s an enormous amount of work to do.”

“I have to say that I was enormously disappointed with the loss of Proposition 8 in California,” she said.

Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state, narrowly passed.

Peg Blair, who lived in Chicago for many years before moving to Westerly, spoke of the “peace, calm and hope” she has been experiencing since she first heard the president-elect speak several years ago.

“I’ve been so impressed by this guy right from the beginning,” she said. “I am really excited.”

Penny Smyth, who drove from Lyme to attend the gathering that she learned about online, said she has been most impressed by the Obama team’s ability to inspire and engage voters.

“He has been able to tap into an enormous amount of human resource and allow it to be released,” she said of the president-elect. “And while I am very, very excited, I also know he can’t do it alone.”

“We’re the ones who have too keep the momentum going,” she said, “He needs us now more than ever.”

“We can be heard now,” she continued, “we are not alone.”

“I have not been active politically since we stopped that war back in the sixties,” said Lew Treistman of East Greenwich. “I am 66 years old and I never thought I’d live to see this day.”

It took him several days, he said, to really grasp the change that had occurred in the nation.

“I couldn’t make it all mesh,” he said, “until about Friday.”

“It was then that I began to realize what a great chasm we had crossed,” he said, tearing up, “the last eight years have been so depressing with the war and the torture.”

“This is just astonishing,” he added.

On the Obama-Biden administration’s Web site, change.gov, Americans are being encouraged to log on to share their stories, experiences and ideas about the direction they’d like to see the country taking and the issues they’d like to see on the administration’s agenda.

At the top of the site, along with a photo of the president-elect reads the message, “Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”

Visit change.gov for more information.

nbfusaro@thewesterlysun.com