Happy New Year from PIRG Campus Action! We are looking forward to continuing the great work on all of our club campuses across the country as we work to make textbooks more affordable, save the bees, alleviate hunger and homelessness in our communities and more! We had a great 2022, here are some of our highlights from the year:
Across the country, we helped students turn out to vote!
Over the last year, leading up to the 2022 midterm election, more than 860 student volunteers, interns, and fellows working on more than 150 campuses across the country (including public and private four-year schools and 43 community colleges) helped hundreds of thousands of their peers make their voice heard in our democracy.
Data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) estimates that the percentage of all eligible young voters, ages 18-29, who cast a ballot in 2022 will reach 27%, the second-highest national voter youth turnout rate for a midterm election in nearly 30 years!
2022 marked the second-highest national voter youth turnout rate for a midterm election in nearly 30 years!
In Michigan our PIRG student leaders Joel and Evan, alongside PIRG organizer Felix, led a team of volunteers throughout the day who made sure students on campus knew where to cast their ballot and provided donuts and pizza to students waiting in line to vote. They also helped students take advantage of same-day registration, enabling students who had not yet registered to register and vote at the on-campus polling location.
In Florida, Florida PIRG Students in Tallahassee partnered with campus and community organizations in the effort to register and re-register their peers. During National Voter Registration Day, PIRG Students at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) organized a campus-wide voter registration event. Participants included the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office, ten FAMU campus organizations, and members of the student government. Tallahassee Mayor John E. Dailey even stopped by!
Tallahassee Community College hosted a “Taco ‘Bout Voting” event to encourage and assist its students to register to vote! Florida PIRG partnered with the TCC student government, Peer Mentors, and other eager students from the athletic department. This event helped to register 70 TCC students, making it a huge success!
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In North Carolina, our NCPIRG team showed up to educate, mobilize, and energize themselves and their peers. We had many on campus polling locations this year with UNC Charlotte having their first ever early voting site on campus. We reached over a thousand students in the fall, getting them registered, reminding them to vote, helping them make a plan to vote, providing resources, holding fun events with prizes and activities, and more – all in an effort to make our voices heard and create a culture of civic engagement on campus.
Thanks to everyone who made this year a memorable one, looking forward to 2023!
Manny Rin
PIRG Campus Action Organizing Director
P.S. If you’d like to apply for a fall internship, you can do so on our website here.
More PIRG Campus Action Photos from Fall 2022!
Turning Students Out to Vote:
Alleviating Hunger and Homelessness in Our Communities:
Building Support to Save the Boreal Forest
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PIRG Campus Action is a training and action program started by the Student PIRGs and is based on a model that has been helping students make positive change for almost 50 years on issues such as protecting the environment and public health, revitalizing our democracy, feeding the hungry and more. Learn more at pirgcampusaction.org