The Florida Rock the Vote meeting and launch party on Wednesday gathered UCF students and members of the Orlando community that shared a common goal: to register young people to vote.
The two-hour meeting held at Ember in Downtown Orlando united 36 volunteers that will work together to create teams that will canvass events in the Central Florida area.
College Democrats at UCF’s vice president Cortez Whatley was the spokesman for one group that suggested canvassing at events such as Red, Hot & Boom, XL 106.7’s annual party during the Fourth of July weekend.
He said that even if he weren’t a member of the College Democrats he would’ve attended the event.
“It’s an excellent opportunity to engage the youth,” Whatley said. “Instead of asking other people to help us, we’re helping ourselves.”
He added that the club is also involved in voter registration and has found that the most common response for people not registered to vote is that they don’t have the time.
Whatley disagrees with that.
“It’s a civic duty,” Whatley said. “It’s having your voice heard. It goes back to the foundation of what makes us our country great.”
The meeting began with Florida state coordinator Blaire Yancy’s self-introduction to volunteers.
She told volunteers that she became involved in activism in high school after a friend of hers was shipped to Afghanistan. Yancy said she joined Rock the Vote because it’s a constant task unlike volunteering to get a candidate elected, which has an expiration date.
She also added what the organization meant to her.
“It’s the most fulfilling thing I’ve done in my life,” Yancy said.
Then, she gathered the volunteers and asked them to introduce themselves to a person they didn’t know. After an exchange of greetings, handshakes, and small talk between volunteers, Yancy narrated the beginning of Rock the Vote.
It was introduced on the show Yo! MTV Raps in 1990 and asked the audience to call the show to register to vote, Yancy said. Then, actors, musicians and celebrities rallied behind Rock the Vote’s message to empower young people to become involved in voting.
Leonardo DiCaprio, members of Megadeth and Justin Timberlake are just a few of the performers that have appeared in public service announcements for the organization, according to its website.
“You’re working to empower an entire generation,” Yancy told the volunteers.
She proceeded to break the volunteers into groups and asked them to create lists of local events to canvass and websites visited by young people where Rock the Vote could reach out to them.
Volunteers were also given a list of events they could sign up for, such as to teach high school students about voter registration, canvassing at Warped Tour or Rockin’ Lake Eola.
Then, volunteers will hit the streets in teams according to the events they signed up for.
Yancy said the event was a success because it had a balanced amount of UCF students and members of the Orlando community.
“To see those two different worlds that are sometimes separate come together, it’s what I really wanted to happen at Rock the Vote,” Yancy said.
She is helping set up volunteer teams in Orlando until August. Then, the community teams will be self-sufficient but will always be able to keep in contact with Yancy. She will move on to help set up teams in Tallahassee and Gainesville.
“This is their movement, it’s in their hands,” Yancy said.
Jen Vargas, a local filmmaker who graduated from Florida Metropolitan University — now Everest University — decided to join Rock the Vote after witnessing how the “2008 election brought dormant people across generations to the polls.”
She filmed lines of people at the polls waiting to vote. Vargas saw children not old enough to vote wearing Barack Obama T-shirts and was moved by it.
Vargas said those who didn’t vote in the last election don’t have a right to complain. And, she had two questions for those who aren’t registered to vote: “Why?” and “Are you American?”
“It’s a right many people have fought and died for,” Vargas said.