Kimberly Gutzler | kimberly@nationalchildrenscampaign.org | (202) 476-9141
Zero Hour & the National Children’s Campaign Launch #Vote4OurFuture Campaign & Bus Tour
The issue-based voter registration and education campaign will kick off with a bus tour through New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Flint, and Milwaukee from March 20 to 30.
CAMPAIGN BACKGROUND:
#Vote4OurFuture is a joint campaign from Zero Hour and the National Children’s Campaign aimed at galvanizing the American people to fight for our nation’s 74 million children and youth. Young people need bold climate action and environmental justice. We’re working to increase voter turnout and encourage Americans to vote on behalf of young people.
The goal of the #Vote4OurFuture campaign is to make climate the most important issue for the American people. This youth-led project will include grassroots activism, community-led organizing, initiatives aimed at increasing voter turnout, strategic partnerships, bus tours, concerts, and more. The campaign is explicitly aimed at increasing voter turnout among first-time voters, young people, black, brown, and indigenous people, low-income people, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people and mobilizing people in these communities to combat environmental racism and environmental injustice.
The campaign is focused on training #Vote4OurFuture ambassadors to educate their communities about the Green New Deal and empower the adults in their lives to vote for the interests of young people. We will work with community leaders to educate communities about the impacts of the Green New Deal. For more information about the campaign, visit vote4ourfuture.org.
BUS TOUR:
From March 20-30, we’re launching the #Vote4OurFuture campaign with a bus tour. We’re meeting with youth activists, community leaders, impacted families, and new voters in New York City (March 20), Philadelphia (March 21-22), Pittsburgh (March 23-24), Detroit (March 25-26), Flint (March 27-28), & Milwaukee (March 29-30), five centers of youth activism in the Midwest. They are also five communities that have been deeply hurt by the climate crisis, environmental racism, and the greed of the fossil fuel industry. Our intention is to build connections in each of these cities and lay the groundwork for our operations this summer. For more information about the tour, visit vote4ourfuture.org/tour.
CreativeChaos vmg and Above the Clouds Films are producing a feature documentary about the movement. They will be following the tour every step of the way.
“We’re proud to take our activism on the road and partner with Zero Hour and local community organizers to fight for a livable planet for the 74 million American children,” said National Children’s Campaign Co-Founder/Executive Director Jonah Gottlieb, a 17-year-old from Petaluma, California. “We’re so excited to take the energy generated by the youth climate movement and use it to create thousands of new voters who will fight for their communities and the future of young people. We have an incredible opportunity to demonstrate the intersectionality of the climate crisis and the environmental issues that face our country and train local youth to show people how their communities will be impacted by the emissions reductions, clean air and water guarantees, and creation of millions of safe, secure, high-paying, union jobs promised by the Green New Deal.”
“Through the bus tour, Zero Hour and the National Children’s Campaign have an amazing opportunity to emphasize the importance of voting in different states,” said Zero Hour Communications Director Natalie Sweet, a 17-year-old from New York, New York. “We’re looking forward to building connections as we travel that we can revisit and build upon this summer as we mobilize for November. We’re also here to learn and grow through addressing the root systems of oppressions that cause the climate crisis as we visit different communities that face extreme environmental injustice and the effects of climate change.”
###
Zero Hour is an international youth climate justice movement that organizes mobilizations, educational campaigns, lobby days, summits, strikes, marches, and media and social media campaigns to demand urgent action on climate change. Zero Hour fights for intersectional solutions to the climate crisis and focuses on addressing the root systems of oppression, like colonialism, that caused the climate crisis in the first place.
The National Children’s Campaign is a national nonprofit organization that serves to amplify the voices of America’s 74 million children and youth and make sure that our nation’s political leaders prioritize the issues that matter to those who are too young to vote. The National Children’s Campaign focuses on health, education, climate and environment, child welfare, gun violence, child immigration, LGBTQ+ rights, and youth civic engagement
###