Seniors Laura Cheney and Ian Gardner opened up their table at Chapel Hill High School’s annual Club Day to offer students a chance to be a part of the Teen Democrats Club.
The club’s initial purpose is not to debate but to help enable students to become involved in their community and local politics.
“There’s lots of volunteer opportunities in ways to feel like you’re making a difference. We wanted to show those options to people at our school who may have not had them,” Cheney said.
Cheney and Gardner serve on the executive board of the Teen Democrats of Orange County, a branch of a countrywide organization.
Teen Democrats meet every two weeks in room A-249. There are ways to be involved every week. For instance, on Mondays there are phone banks available at East Chapel Hill.
The club is working on canvassing opportunities where people can go door to door to talk to voters about political issues.
Although the club is mostly for encouraging involvement from the community, Gardner hopes to instill a coherent and logical way for people to argue and hold opinions.
“You don’t have to agree 100%, but you have to be able to support your own opinions with actual facts and statistics,” Gardner said.
The club leaders also want to emphasize local elections and candidates.
“I feel like it’s really easy to get caught up reading the news and focus on the national scale, but a lot of the decisions are made on the state and local level, and I’d like to increase students’ awareness of that and their actions to get involved in what they’re passionate about,” Cheney said.
Gardner plans to study politics in college and eventually go to law school, while Cheney is considering studying public policy.
History teacher Veena Rajan is the advisor of the Teen Democrats Club and encourages political activism in teenagers.
“I think it’s important for kids to get engaged with the community because that’s the whole point of democracy,” Rajan said.
