Dallas Aguilar spent his 18th birthday voting for the first time.
The Crowley High School senior was accompanied by about 200 other Crowley ISD students and community members as they marched a little over half a mile from Rosenthal Park to the Tarrant County Southwest Subcourthouse to cast their ballots.
“It’s crazy because I have to come to a final decision,” Dallas said. “It’s my first time voting — on my birthday — which is an awesome thing,”
Crowley ISD teamed up with the nonpartisan organization March to the Polls on Oct. 25 for Party at the Polls, designed to teach high school students the importance of voting. The event started off at Rosenthal Park with food and games for the district’s three high schools, Crowley High, North Crowley High and Crowley Collegiate Academy.
Madison Stanton, a junior at Crowley High School and the president of the student-led civic engagement group, Student Voter Empowerment Clubs, encouraged students to realize that their voices matter. Although Madison is not yet old enough to vote, she strives to increase voter turnout among young citizens by teaching them the importance of casting a ballot.
“You have local elections, you have city hall elections, you have school board elections that affect you and your neighborhoods every day,” Madison shared.
Drum lines led the strolling party to the polls at the Tarrant County Southwest Subcourthouse. Students shouted “Go vote!” as they walked to exercise their civic duty — many for the first time.
Residents stood outside their houses to cheer on the young voters.
Kennedy Nguyen marched in front of the Crowley High School drum line to lead the group to their destination. Kennedy said he believes it is important to have young people represented, no matter the political party.
“It’s important for us to vote, for us to get our voice out and for us to change the world,” Kennedy said. “Because we’ll be running it one day.”
Camilo Diaz is a multimedia fellow at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at camilo.diaz@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.