Descriptions of Virginia21 Signature Events
Annual and Reoccurring Events
Democracy Reboot:ed
Democracy Reboot:ed is an annual conference on youth civic engagement, usually co-hosted by senators form both parties and features leaders in Virginia politics. Democracy Rebooted’s primary goal is to engage, energize, and activate the brightest young leaders from across the Commonwealth by giving them the skills necessary to become the next generation of leaders that put policy ahead of politics. To do this we bring several current political leaders, lobbyists, university presidents, and business leaders to give presentations and host workshops on a wide variety of issues from youth civic engagement to lobbying 101.
Voice of a Generation Awards
The Voice of a Generation Award is an award giving annually to a two-year and a four-year Virginia21 chapter that best illustrates it’s commitment to Virginia21’s non-partisan, student-driven, grassroots advocacy promoting the agenda of young voters.
Legislative Reception & Lobby Day
Legislative day is an exciting day of the year starting with early morning subcommittee meeting and ending with the exciting legislative reception. During the day, students get the opportunity to advocate for Virginia21 legislation, and to give first had accounts to legislators on how these issues affect them. They also get to hear about exciting internship opportunities and witness the political process in action. During the reception students get to partake in chocolate fountains and fantastic food while networking with business leaders, political staffers, legislators, lobbyists, and board members from around Virginia.
21 Days of Virginia21
21 Days is a membership and awareness campaign. For 21 days our campus chapters hold meetings, bring in legislators, and in general get the word out about virignia21 and their local chapters in a multitude of ways. This is great opportunity for marketing and letting students know about how to get involved in the many events and things Virginia21 has to offer.
Student Leadership Meetings / Conference
Virginia21 holds monthly meetings of the student leaderships committee and
Democracy 101
Is a statewide campaign to improve the turnout for poll workers. As is often the case the average age for poll workers is in the 60’s, Virginia21 wants youth to be engaged as apart of the political process, make a little money, and build future active citizens.
Don’t Be Scared to Vote / Be a Superhero / Don’t Vote Act!
These Programs are all regional voting programs that Viriginia21 has tailored for various campuses. ‘Don’t be scared to vote’ is a Halloween voter registration drive. ‘Be a poicial superhero’ is also a voter drive. ‘don’t vote, act’ is a voter drive with a twist. We encourage students to not just vote, but to also come out to lobby or write in to there representatives for bills thatare important to them.
Signature Keynote Speakers
Virginia21 students get the opportunity to see many famous political figures and here them speak and learn form their expertise. Here are just a few recent examples.
Sandra Day O’Connor – Former Supreme Court Justice
Eric Schmidt – CEO Google
Governors – Current and Past
Legislation Based Events
AARP Collaboration
Virginia21 was the first outside organization to be given an AARP presidents award for grassroots advocacy during the ‘Divided We Fail’ campaign. We were also the only statewide-only organization to be asked to join ‘Divided We Fail’. This was a huge honor as we think of ourselves as an entity like AARP but for a younger audience. While out policies don’t always meet up, for’Divided We Fail’ we felt the issues at hand were too important to our constituents to not be apart of the conversation.
Good Government Programs e.g. Fair Redistricting
Virginia21 supports many Good Government Programs that while not higher education related are youth related and good for our Commonwealth. The Fair Redistricting campaign was one such program that we felt was somehting worht fighting for and many of our students went to bat at the Capital to tell there representatives about how it affected their lives. The Fair Redistricting is gaining ground and we look forward to it’s passage.
Save A Penny, Don’t Pass The Buck
Virginai21 raised hundreds of thousands of pennies, each one representing a voter who wanted to see a penny raise in the funding to support fiscal needs across the state. the pennies were given directly to the state treasurer. Sadly the bill didn’t pass and we see many of the problems today that might have been prevented had it passed, such as the massive cutbacks at VDOT.