PARKLAND, FLA. (WSVN) - Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student activists kicked off their Road to Change statewide tour.
Shooting survivors from the Parkland high school massacre will be hard at work this summer to get residents educated and registered to vote before the midterm elections.
They kicked off the tour on Friday.
“We’re having a kickoff event for our Road to Change tour, which is essentially a tour where we go to every voting district in Florida,” said MSD student Ryan Servaites, “try to talk to the people there, try to talk to the youth and tell them about the importance of their vote and having their voice heard.”
The same organizers behind the March for Our Lives rally are planning to spend the next two months going to every congressional district in Florida for this tour.
“There are over three million kids turning 18 this year,” said MSD student Lauren Hogg. “We want people to think of voting not as a chore but as something that we want to do, something that we should be happy that we have the privilege of doing.”
The Road to Change tour will start in Parkland and cover districts in Florida and across the country. “We’re hitting every single district in Florida, all 27 congressional districts,” said MSD student Brendan Duff. “We’re not gonna be getting a whole lot of sleep, but it’s definitely the best kind of work we can be doing right now.”
What happened to the Parkland community on Feb. 14 is driving this initiative. “Our kid is not here anymore. He won’t be here,” said Manuel Oliver, Joaquin Oliver’s father. “He was supposed to be voting in November, and he won’t.”
Hogg said that she wants to show people that they can make a change.
“Showing people like us, kids, teenagers in between the ages of 18 and 24-year-olds even that haven’t voted in past elections, and inspiring them to go out and vote,” Hogg said.
The whole goal is to urge people to vote this upcoming election.
“Last midterm election, we had the lowest voter turnout from people 18 to 21 since the Second World War, which is staggering,” Duff said.
This comes on the same day that the Broward Sheriff’s Office released witness statements from the mass shooting that took 17 lives.
One was from a coach who was with the shooter moments before he began firing. He said he heard the shots and hid in a custodial closet.
That horror is what fuels this group of teenagers to continue pushing for change.
“The change we want is to get as many people out there and voting as possible,” Servaites said. “Of course we’re very much proponents to a common sense gun legislation. That’s the basis of our movement but even something greater than that – making sure the youth of this nation are allowed to be represented and understand that they can represent themselves.”
The tour begins on Saturday.
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