The Hot Sheet

Giving Thanks for Bus Service

It’s almost Thanksgiving, and we have been traveling around Allegheny County for the past several days with an open letter to the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 85, and the County Executive to urge them to find a solution to the contract dispute that was threatening a strike as soon as next Monday.

We talked to more than four hundred people who rely on the bus for school, or for work, or to get medical care, or to visit family. Many would have no other option to get them where they need to go, if PAT stopped running.

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Tags: public transit

Essay Contest for 16-24 year olds

Enter an essay contest for youth advocates co-sponsored by Advocates for
Youth, Feminist Majority Foundation, SIECUS, and the Sierra Club!

Win a trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in the fourth annual
“One Voice: Reproductive Health and Population” Summit

We invite advocates ages 16-24 to write an essay of no more than
500 words about the potential roles youth can play in advocating for a
more just and sustainable world, where all people have access to sexual
and reproductive health services and a healthy environment. Tell us how
you would use your experience from the One Voice Summit
to create a year-long action plan that will make a difference on these issues in your school and/or community.

CONTEST DEADLINE IS MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2008 at 5pm EST.

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Tags: civic, engagement, essay contest, reproductive rights, Youth, youth activism

Passion, but without anger

http://kdka.com/local/North.Fayette.School.2.861673.html

This story, while disturbing, shows very clearly what the League has
known all along: the youth of the United States, and of Pennsylvania,
are not apathetic about politics, as they are so often portrayed. What
they are is frustrated and angry, and they don’t know how to express
that constructively.

Luckily, that is why we are here, and it is because of stories like
this that we get out every day to teach young people that there is a
way that they can change their country peacefully but forcefully, with
passion but without anger, constructing new centers of power rather
than willy-nilly tearing down old ones.

It is all there in our tagline: engage, educate and empower for the
future of Pennsylvania.

Mac Booker

Tags: apathy, Civic engagement, Education, politics, schools, violence, Youth

Interviewed at the polls!

PA League of Young Voters own Dylan Lampe was interviewed by WTAE while he waited in line to vote on Chatham’s campus.

Meanwhile, volunteer Francine Porter was out interviewing voters about their voting experience and thoughts on the election.

Videos like these are being uploaded by the League as well as many other groups and individuals all across the county as part of the Video Your Vote project.

Tags: election day, election protection, stories, videoyourvote, voters

Everyone knows our Voter Guides rock

Ashley DiParlo at WTAE interviewed our own Carly Dobbins-Bucklad about the League of Young Voters special DIY voter guide website, theballot.org — where you can see all the League non-partisan voter guides (including PA’s!) with information on all of the down-ballot candidates and referendums, as well as upload your own voter guide.

People and organizations can submit guides all over the country, so if you’ve got a friend in another state, pass theballot.org on!

Tags: ballot.org, candidates, DIY, election, election information, League of Young Voters, national, non-partisan, online, Pennsylvania, state representative, vote, voter guides, wtae, Youth