Last summer, Vinny Varone attended a civic engagement panel at Simon Gratz High School in Philadelphia. There were a few cops, a leader from WHYY, and some students. One young boy went up to ask this question: "So my brother got shot two weeks ago while he was playing basketball; how do we make this stop in my neighborhood?" 

Was it the loss of his grandmother, or his curiosity, that led him to become the president of the University Park Undergraduate Association, the student representative to the Borough of State College’s City Council, and the chair of the Committee on Governmental and Community Relations? For Zion Sykes, the answer isn’t as simple as either/or—it’s both. 

Let’s travel back in time to 2020, the year the world shut down as coronavirus spread. I was sixteen years old, a sophomore in high school. Suddenly, my friends and I no longer communicated in the cafeteria during lunchtime or on the way to class. Our lives moved online.

I may not have a vote, but I do have a voice, and I intend to use it. Encouraging others to engage in the democratic process became my way of contributing, even if indirectly, to US democracy. For every person I convinced to register or to show up at the polls, I felt like I was speaking up for those of us left out. 

Every evening on my walk from Drexel’s library, I watch packed SEPTA buses pass by. Many are packed with healthcare workers from nearby hospitals and riders returning from medical appointments. Many are packed with students returning from college. Others are traveling to restaurants in Center City or a Flyers game. Over 750,000 rides are taken on public transit daily through SEPTA.

At their annual event, #VoteThatJawn encourages young people to register and vote!

No one outside of its residents had ever really heard of the small Mississippi town before June 1964. That’s when the stories began.

Today in 2024, we find ourselves at the 60-year anniversary of some of the most influential few months of the Civil Rights Movement.

“Blacks [do] everything. Everything,” Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, declared in awe. And it was true.

It was June 21, 1964 and James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner were setting out for Philadelphia, Mississippi

Freedom Summer volunteers had an orientation; here’s yours.

By Cassidy Whaley Over the years I've come to realize a striking truth: in school, students often spend as much time questioning the...

By Tina Smith-Brown Philadelphia is a tough place for politics. Registering voters is far from easy here, but West Point cadet, Sheyla...

Youth voting is trending all over America; it only made sense to create an event that would highlight and support these efforts.

I have a personal problem with gun legislation that stems from the lack of controls. I feel like getting and concealing a gun is too easy.

By Gemma Hong A GenZ Breakdown One thing about our generation is that we hate to be generalized. We don’t think the same, look the same,...

By Kyla Downs March for Our Lives, a youth-led movement that began after the 2018 Parkland, FL, school shooting, has a policy titled “It...

So how can you help? How can we ensure that the now-fair Pennsylvania maps stay fair? Easy: you #VoteThatJawn. Everything that has happened

By Gemma Hong Youth voices matter. That is the belief of the Philly students working with PA Youth Vote to register every 18-year old in...

By Maya Hairston “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court...

By Kyla Downs I have often heard people say, “why should I vote when it doesn’t count?” A common culture in minority communities says...