We had to cancel our League Holiday Party due to the snow, ice and cold! A week later, it is low 50s to maybe 60 degrees? Go figure! Sorry to miss getting together, but we will reschedule!
On January 28th, Tuesday, 1pm at the Hewlett Woodmere Library, we will have a meeting on Climate Change on Long Island. Joe Kolodny and his committee are putting together a program that will once again be very informative. The program in December on Hunger on Long Island was phenomenal. Please see Harris Dinkoff’s article on it in this issue.
The LWV of Nassau County, of which we are a part, was awarded in mid-December a grant from LWVUS to increase voter registration of students in underserved areas! As Leaguers, we know that if we get a young person to vote at that first election and they tend to be lifelong voters!
National is organizing in depth hour long webinars with those Leagues that received this grant; anyone interested in assisting in this project, please give Peter Rosenthal, our Voter Service chair, a call (295-1325).
In this vein, Judie Gorenstein’s section on Youth Programs in the December LWV State Voter caught my eye:
I would like to take this opportunity to have you considering reaching out to a high school with racially diverse population or in a disadvantaged area. As I wrote in the November State Voter, the Commission on Youth And Civic Knowledge found youngsters in those schools had lower voter turnout and civic engagement. Most of our local Leagues already have some program they bring to local high schools. What if our local Leagues each designated one other high school to bring a program to and what if these high schools could all be seen as either in disadvantaged areas or having a racially diverse student population? We would certainly be furthering the League’s mission and even may be able to submit this as an entrant for youth programs at the LWVUS convention. Remember two years ago SIA won the youth award. Can we do it again? Please let us know if your League would be interested in reaching out to another school.
With the grant from National that we now have available to us, I would like Southwest Nassau to accept this challenge from Judy. This is important stuff and I think we need to step up. It is our youth that are our future, and we need them to vote so that many decide our future, not just a few.
2014 is a promising year!
