Michael Haresign

Michael Haresign is a lifelong DC resident, living a few blocks from his childhood home in the Tenleytown/AU Park neighborhood. Michael is a career bartender specializing in “pub style” bartending and building a base of guests that live within a mile of the establishment. Michael has been an active community member in several different capacities, from coaching baseball at Deal, Wilson (now Jackson-Reed), and Maret in Ward 3, DC Dynasty, Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities and the Batter Up Foundation throughout the city, to giving a worker implementation perspective to the promotions committee for Tenleytown Mainstreet.

During the Covid 19 pandemic which shuttered restaurants and public gathering spaces, Michael helped attach members of the restaurant and nightlife workforce to grocery and meal kit drop-offs in different parts of the District and inner ring suburbs. Helped enroll members of the restaurant and nightlife workforce in the study which helped speed up FDA approval of the Moderna mRNA-1273 vaccine. During the pandemic shutdown Michael also held the District government officials and councilmembers accountable for the lack of disbursement payments following the collapse of the unemployment insurance system, connecting the workforce to their Ward councilmember’s constituent service team, and testifying before the council which did not grasp how desperate folks were waiting several months with jobs shuttered or running with minimal staff and no disbursements.

Advocating for the LGBTQIA+ community and making sure that there are safe gathering places serving as positive cultural contact points for the community is his passion.