This paper focuses on the role of information technologies for grassroots organizations and particularly their function for enhancing democratic participation and expression of political and environmentalist concerns. In this paper, I first present the background of this paper by briefly reviewing the literature on IT and participatory democracy. Second, I describe the information-technology resources available to grassroots environmental groups, as well as to political student-lead activist groups in the state of North Carolina, U.S.A. I also compare how these groups actually use (and in some instances don't use) these resources. And finally, I discuss how information-technology resources have enhanced --and have the potential to further enhance-- citizen participation in local policy-making decision processes.