It’s been a busy Spring for the youth coalition movement that’s sweeping Florida. Here’s what we’ve been up to since our last update. If you aren’t caught up, I’d recommend you go read our first post here, but the TLDR is that things have never been better in the youth organizing space in Florida.
Since last time we’ve been featured in Vanity Fair, Time Magazine, and many others for our work to engage students on critical college campuses all across the sunshine state. Our spring pilot program was incredibly successful. I could talk about our tulip giveaway, where we worked with sororities to
organize within greek houses and make them aware of Florida’s abortion access ballot measure. I could talk about the hundreds of hours spent tabling, and thousands of conversations we’ve had on college campuses. I could talk about the way our organizers light up when they get a new shipment of merch that they suggested or recommended. But I’d rather just show you.
In Florida, Democrats are in a super-minority in the state house, allowing the GOP to run… everything. House District 91 is a great example of a seat that Democrats really should control, but we don’t.
This time in 2022, FAU didn’t have a college democrats chapter. There was no starting place, no center of engagement for youth organizing. So, we fixed that, by hiring local organizers to make it their job to start building up that chapter. And it’s working. The chapter is thriving and quickly expanding in membership.
So here’s the plan for fall. We are going to triple the number of organizers we hire on each campus. We are going to run ads in non-conventional spaces like Tinder and Snapchat that a lot of other campaigns, especially locally, overlook. Thousands if not millions of texts will blanket the states young people to make sure they know what’s on their ballot, and that they have a plan for the election. Our poster programs will blanket campuses with awareness of important election dates, and when social events are going to be occurring so folks can build a community, while they are working to change their state. Many of us only can do this because of the incredible friendships we’ve built working together.
I’ve been going to Leadership Blue (The FL Democratic Party’s Annual Conference), for years. Not once did I think I’d see the day where party leadership and statewide candidates go out of their way to roll out the red carpet and listen to young people. In the past, that kind of fanfare is reserved for the young republicans. But this year was different. Even though many of us couldn’t make it (it was state school graduation weekend), we still had a very strong youth attendance, and the amount of selfies elected officials wanted to take with us was frankly overwhelming. The support was palpable.
There’s an old adage in politics: endorsements only matter if they come with money or manpower. Now that we have both, we are being offered a seat at the table.
But this summer isn’t just about planning. We are also excited to announce a first of it’s kind in our state Youth Summit in Orlando FL in July- more details to come. The idea is that it’s going to be a celebrity headlined hype event, to attract new leaders into the fold, make them feel celebrated, and empower them to all go out and be advocates in their community to turn out young voters in the Fall.
it’s one thing to make a plan, it’s another thing to watch a plan be executed, and the work be recognized nationally because of how unique it is. I’m so proud of the folks who I work with every single day, who don’t just resign themselves to not being able to do anything about the MAGA challenges facing our state, but at 19 years old, or even younger, wake up and start actually making a difference in a very very real way.
Thank you for following along, and we will keep you updated!
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