Civic Education in the Community
Our mission is to foster more active and informed citizens by providing nonpartisan, reliable resources and educational opportunities that advance the understanding of our representative government, elections, and voting.
Our Civic Education in Schools team started 2020 strong, with plans for a full schedule of in-person high school classroom presentations and voter registration drives. During our in-person high school visits from January through March, we presented to 600 students and received 490 registrations with the help of our dedicated presenters and committed volunteers. We have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students and teachers about our program!
But when the schools shut down mid-March, we joined the rest of the world in learning to shift our efforts to digital. The result was not just a team of volunteers ready to "Zoom" into virtual classrooms with a live, digital presentation, but also an ever-expanding library of 50+ web-ready, educational materials and infographics! During the 2020 fall election season, we shared our digital resources with broad coalitions of community partners. We continue this essential service today.
Walk through our Voter Resource Library.
Learn more about our High School and College Outreach Program.
We Also Learned About Our Resilient Communities Did you know that because of COVID and other factors, a segment as large as 40% of our community does not have access to reliable technology? To respond to this need our team: --Created and distributed grant-funed, printed voter materials. Ready-Set-VOTE! door hanger bags of materials for over 2000 individuals resulted in new voter registrations--like the 187 student registrations at Pittsburgh Public Schools. These bags contain voter registration forms and instructions, but also our unique Civic Education infographics with topics like Why Vote in Municipal Elections, Fact or Fiction and Know Your Rights on Election Day .
--For the 2021 Municipal Primary, printed voter materials for 1200 individuals were created and distributed. --For the Municipal General Election on November 2, 2021, 1000 additional Ready-Set-VOTE! bags are now available for distribution to school and community partners.