As students nationwide prepare to gather by the thousands in Saturday’s March for Our Lives, many of them locally are working to Get Out the Vote for Real Change on Gun Violence.
On a day when students nationwide walked outside to protest school shootings, Gabrielle Rabon urged her classmates to walk into voting booths.
On the recent Student Walkout Day, the City High senior challenged students turning 18 to vote in upcoming elections and push for legislation to help end mass school shootings.
Gabrielle told hundreds of fellow students to speak up with all the power they have. “In the next couple of years,” she said, “all of us will have this same power, and we need to use it.”
Getting out the vote is a major push for Gabrielle and other area students, as they stage public protests following the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
She and other students planned to gather in downtown Grand Rapids for Saturday’s March for Our Lives, while dozens boarded a bus for Washington, D.C.
More than just symbolic actions, the protests must spark political pressure on lawmakers to enact real change, says City High senior class president Ellie Lancaster.
She urged classmates to save the names of the Parkland victims and never forget them -- and make sure that their elected officials never forget them, either.
For the School News Network, I’m Charles Honey.