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OTHER YOUTH PROGRAMS THROUGHOUT THE STATE
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| Meet Your Legislators |
LWV of Plattsburgh sponsored Meet Your Legislators Event. They invited each of their area high schools to choose two delegates to send to Meet Your Legislators Forum. The event was held on Saturday morning and included power point presentation on SIA as well as legislators presenting information on their current job, steps to getting elected, committees they are on, advantages and disadvantages of being senator or assemblyman , etc. At the end of the program, the representative to SIA was chosen, as well as an alternate, by lottery of all those present.
Contact: Betty Ann King.
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| Take Me to Vote |
Take Your Kids 2 Vote is a campaign to encourage America’s parents to make Election Day a true lesson in democracy for their children. Taking our kids along when we vote is both the simplest and most effective way to demonstrate the greatest gift of American citizenship. Other local Leagues have programs also; contact state office for info.
- LWV Saratoga Take Me to Vote Program
- LWV of Chautauqua. The Take Me to Vote project aims to introduce children to voting while motivating them to get their parents or guardians to go to the polls. Each schoolchild gets a large colorful card to take to the polling place with a voting adult; the cards are signed by one of the election inspectors, and the classroom in each school that gets the largest proportion of signed cards returned wins a pizza party. The project has the blessing of the County Election Commissioners, of the various superintendents and elementary school principals, and of the teachers, who prepare each class (K-5) with appropriate instruction on democracy. Starting about eight years ago with four schools, the program now reaches every public and most private schools in our far-flung rural county: 11,000 students this year. Contact: Minda Rae Amiran.
- LWV of Schenectady. The Take Me to vote involves all the elementary schools in the county grades K through 5. Every child is given a paper which they bring with them to the poll site when they go with an adult. This slip of paper with child’s name and school is placed in an envelope at the site and counted afterwards. The school with the highest participation gets a plaque provided by Time Warner and the Mayor or Town Supervisor presents it at an assembly. Contact: Connie Young.
- LWV of Tompkins County This program is done with cooperation of the Tompkins County Board of Elections and encourages adult voters to take their children and “future voters”to the polls when they vote. “Future voters” who accompany and adult to the polls will receive a special Future Voter sticker (provided by the LWVTC) from the poll site manager or election inspector. The goals are: to encourage voter turnout, to have adults take future voters to the polls and demonstrate the importance of active informed participation in government by voting, and to prepare children for the rights and responsibilities of citizenship through direct voting experience. The LWV of Tompkins County has prepared letters to be sent to parents, to school personnel ( superintendents, administrators, principals, teachers,) and to parents. Contact: Kathleen Yen.
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| First Vote |
First Vote is a project of The League of Women Voters of Saratoga County that reaches out to graduating seniors in Saratoga County high schools to provide them with the resources they need to register to vote. Read more...
LWV of Saratoga. Contact:Darnell Rohrbaugh. |
| Leaderspark |
LeaderSpark, a national non-profit program with experience dating back to 1988, provides the curriculum, coaching, training and tools you need to create practical leadership skills and new behaviors in today’s youth. Read More...
LWV of Saratoga. Contact: Darnell Rohrbaugh. |
| Leadership in the Community |
| The LWV Smithtown, in conjunction with the Smithtown Youth Bureau, created a Leadership in the Community program, which has been offered twice- once to 35 8th to 10th graders at the Kings Park High School, and currently to a smaller group of the same age as an abbreviated summer program. The partnership with the Smithtown Youth Bureau has expanded the ability to reach out to a larger youth population, helped with additional leaders and facilitators, and regularly reinvigorated this small league in its youth efforts. The program is directed towards an individual or team project. Understanding and developing leadership and communication skills, team building and working with groups, and conflict resolution are all stressed in the program; the program also helps in finding prospective participants for Students Inside Albany! Also Leadership in the Community has helped LWV Smithtown raise its profile in our community.
Contac: Lisa Scott. |
| Running and Winning |
| LWV of Hamptons. In its fourth year, Running and Winning provides an opportunity for junior and senior student-leaders to meet with local legislators to hear what it's like to serve as a public official and to work together in cooperative teams to prepare for a political campaign. Having been selected by the administration and faculty from their schools, participants are assigned positions: candidate, speech writer, fundraiser, and publicist; write and present a speech on a predetermined well-researched topic (this year, it's getting out the vote); design a poster and logo, and present how they will raise necessary campaign funds. This year, two participants chosen at the event will represent this league at Students Inside Albany. Contact: Mary Blake. |
| Tools to Change Your World |
| LWV of Rye, RyeBrook, PortChester. This extracurricular seminar encourages young people to participate in government and equips them with knowledge and tools to grapple with real world problems. It takes high school students from neighboring school districts and has them research solutions to local problems. This past year the seminar was comprised of full day retreats and several evening two hour sessions that addressed the challenge of increasing voter turnout. It moves from research to solutions and empowers students to become concerned and active citizens. This program is evolving and will be entering its third year.
Contact: Debbie Reisner. |
| Vote Rochester |
| LWV of Rochester. Vote Rochester aims to increase voter registration in Monroe County by targeting young people through social networking. All of the Participation in Government classes in the city of Rochester are visited by college students via the electoral fellows program which already brings together college students interested in politics. The website makes it possible to look up friends and family to see who’s registered and who’s not, so you can recruit them. It’s voters getting viral!
The LWVis also engaging with partner organizations whose constituencies have a stake in being better represented in government. The organizations set a goal, make a plan, and make a wish for how they might be recognized when they meet their goal. The League assists them with volunteers, the tools on our website, and help make their wish for recognition come true.
Contact: Barbara Grosh. |
| Girls Day Out |
| LWV of Schenectady. This is a program done in conjunction with other community agencies to help 7th and 8th grade girls build relationships, enhance their self esteem, and inspire them. It involves a full day program at which the girls participate in workshops on building relationship skills, a workshop on arts expression and then share what they learned in a finale. The program continues into the schools as the girls meet in groups with mentors to help develop healthy relationships, solve programs and work to stay in school. Contact: Joanne Tobiessen. |
| A Different Kind of Youth Program |
The Suffolk County League has supported the growth of the Center for Restorative Practices, Inc, which is housed at Touro Law Center in Central Islip New York. The Center and the League are members of Touro’s Public Advocacy Center (PAC) . The Center’s primary mission is to break the school-to-prison pipeline. Young law students have been recruited to assist in this effort. Dialogue and open access between the League, the Center and young professionals is now in place. The students are working to (1) assist high-school students who are facing suspension hearings and (2) to advocate for the use of “conferencing” as an alternative response to suspensions, expulsions and some juvenile incarcerations. The students are also assisting in plans for the Center’s national conference, “Integrating Restorative Practices Into our Justice System,” to take place on November 18, 2011. For more information please go to the Center’s web site at
crp-ny.com.
Contact: Carol McNally. |
| Voting 101 |
| LWVWC (Wayne County) MAL steering committee constructed a powerpoint, called Voting 101, last fall (2010), that was presented to grade 12 classes in Wayne County. Click here to view and download the power point.
Voting 101 used part of First Vote, some internet pictures, and information from three American History Grants. It's basically a History of voting (from the Long Island voting game), with media (video, primary sources) along with what redistricting means to the voting public. The DVD was given out at the NYS Council on Social Studies Convention in Rochester in March, and to each high school in Wayne County. Contact: Ellie Drake. |
| Vote 18 |
Vote18 is an active, interactive romp through history, developed to impress upon students, in a visceral way, the importance of voting. The program was designed to be presented in one classroom session of 40 minutes to one hour. The Vote18 curriculum belongs to a separate not-for-profit corporation, which has trained League members to teach it in high schools throughout the state.
- LWV of Huntington is training high school students in the Huntington Youth Council to present this program in junior high and elementary schools. The LWV of Huntington has presented this program to over 3000 high school students. They are now looking to bring the program with the help of high school students to elementary and junior high schools.
Contact: Judie Gorenstein.
- This has been successful program in LWV of Rye, Rye Brook, PortChester, in educating students as well as adults. They also held training session for future leaders of the program. Contact: Debbie Reisner.
- Vote 18 national website
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| Scholarships for High School Seniors |
LWV of Cazenovia. Contact: Janet Monroe.
LWV of White Plains. Contact: Madeline Zevon |
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