DELANO, Calif. (KERO) — The Delano youth led organization Loud4tomorrow has been working to increase voter turnout in their communities for the last five years. Their goal is to teach people that their vote matters.
- Loud4tomorrow is a community organization focused on empowerment, civic engagement, and advocacy for the youth.
- They’ve been active since 2018 but in 2019, they decided to use their voices to create change in their communities — all by picking up the phone.
- Since then, members tell me that they’ve been able to reach at least 10,000 voters.
In 2019, a group of young adults decided to use their voices to create change in their communities.
It's called phone banking and it's their biggest effort for voter education.
In the years they've been active, they've been able to reach at least 10,000 voters with no plans of stopping anytime soon.
Co-founder of Loud4tomorrow Rosanai Paniagua says with only around 17,000 registered voters in a city of 50,000, phone banking has been a part of their routine for the last five years.
"We try to bring in our own stories, we try to tell folks like, ‘hey I'm struggling with rent right now, are you?’ Have you heard about proposition five that can potentially help us reach those affordable housing policies,” said Paniagua.
Paniagua says at times, they've run into people who are simply not interested in voting at all.
She says their biggest reasoning is the misconception that their vote won't count.
"There's only about I believe 7,000 voters that are engaged in our elections. Politics affects every single person in this community and just everywhere so it is very unfortunate that those numbers are very low but that's why we're here,” said Paniagua.
Paniagua says issues from the housing crisis to poor air quality can be solved if more people would use their power in their rights to vote.
"You simply just have to get involved because then we would never have changed. You know voting is the one tool we have available, one of the few tools we have available to make real change,” said Paniagua.
If you're not registered to vote, the last day to register online is October 21st by 11:59 pm.
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