5 ways to get your teens involved in the Reform Movement's 2020 Civic Engagement Campaign

It’s no secret that teens are leading us into the future. As the Reform Movement prepares to launch Every Voice, Every Vote, our 2020 civic engagement campaign, it’s critical that our movement’s teens not only have a voice, but have the tools to mobilize their congregations and communities in this new virtual world. This pandemic highlights the important role our elected officials play at every level of government and now is the time for us to fight voter suppression, and to ensure all U.S. citizens exercise their right to vote. We can do this from home -- check out these five ways to get started with your teens:

1. Invite your teens to join the Every Voice, Every Vote virtual kickoff on Tuesday, May 19 at 8 pm ET.
   Come together with your teens, their families, and leaders from across the Movement to learn how your community can be a part of this important campaign. You’ll hear from our student leaders about our campaign pillar to mobilize young voters, learn about the campaign as a whole, and walk away feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to take action. Consider inviting teens from your congregation to join you for a post-watch party to do some campaign action planning to kick off your work!
2. Share these online learning and leadership opportunities with your teens.
   The RAC is excited to launch a new series of online learning and leadership opportunities for all Jewish teens—no prior experience with the RAC required! We are creating meaningful and fun online opportunities, knowing that Jewish teens across North America are at home and eager to make a difference. Check out the bottom of the page for details, and share them with your community. Following the virtual town hall, our next series offering is on May 27 at 5 p.m. ET: Jewish Teen Activism in a Time of COVID: Civic Engagement, Voting Rights & Digital Organizing.
3. Sign up for a voter registration and get-out-the-vote training.
   We have partnered with The Civics Center, an organization dedicated to building the foundations of youth civic engagement, to bring their amazing resources together with our Jewish values and community to provide you with voter-registration and get out the vote resources and materials tailored to our campaign.

Through our partnership with The Civics Center, you can:

• Run voter registration drives in your synagogue and school
• Get your congregation involved in voter registration
• Participate in National Voter Registration Day (September 22, 2020) and High School Voter Registration Week (September 21-25, 2020)

Sign up for one of our summer trainings today!

Monday, June 29, 2020 at 9pm EST
Tuesday, July 28, 2020 at 5pm EST
Sunday, August 23, 2020 at 3:00pm EST

4. Invite your teens to learn about relational organizing.
   Our campaign is based in relational organizing, or strengthening relationships and finding common ground to build power and affect change.

We will use The Empower app to organize people we know to register and vote. You and your teens can use Empower to reach out to friends and contacts in your personal network to help get out the vote. We’ll be running an Empower App training during our May 27 seminar for teens. Look out for even more Empower resources coming soon but in the meantime feel free to check it out and get started!

5. Pledge to vote, and work with your community to do the same.  Work with your teens to run a pledge-to-vote campaign in your community, and lead the way by pledging yourself. Pledging to vote and making a plan for how to access your ballot is one of the most effective ways to get voter turnout. Our digital pledge card makes it easy to reach out to voters to ask them to make a commitment to vote.

We want to hear about the great ways you plan to organize your teens and your community to get involved in this campaign! Fill out the commitment form with your teens, and get your whole community to tag photos with #ReformJewsVote!