Page 3 - Florida Sentinel 6-12-18

Feature
Voter Education Fair To Be Held At Ragan Park June 20th
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
In the fall, Ms. Er- rdaisha Floyd will begin classes at Columbia Univer- sity. However, this summer, she will be actively involved in educating young adults about the voting process.
As a Freedom Fellow for the Dream Defenders, Ms. Floyd is inviting members of the Black community to attend a Voter Education and Registration Fair.
The event will take place on Wednesday, June 20th, from 3 p.m. until 7 p.m., at Ragan Park Community Cen- ter, 1200 E. Lake Av- enue.
“We are calling it a fair because people will be able to walk around and gather important information about the upcoming elec- tion.
“We are going to elect
people to fill offices on the federal, state, and local level. We are empower- ing our people. This is a very, very important elec- tion. There are a lot of im- portant positions up in November.
“We need to put people in office who are actually going to do what we need them to do.”
Ms. Floyd further stated, “There will be a coalition on hand to discuss issues specifically related to Tampa so that the commu- nity can see what they are voting on and why it is so important.”
The will also be repre- sentatives from the Hills- borough County Supervisor of Elections Office to regis- ter voters.
Representatives from the Hillsborough County NAACP Branch and repre- sentatives from the Voter Rights Restoration Coalition
ERRDAISHA FLOYD
will also be on hand.
Ms. Floyd graduated
from in the International Baccalaureate Program at Hillsborough High School in 2018. She graduated with an unweighted grade point average of 3.9 and a weighted grade point aver- age of 7.9. Her goal is to be- come a Civil Rights attorney.
The Dream Defenders is an organization designed to bring about changes in
Florida.
Their website states,
“This year, as politicians vie for elected office in the Sun- shine State, we - Black, im- migrant and poor young people from Pensacola to the Keys - have launched our own agenda for the fu- ture of Florida.
“In 2018, we were killed in our classrooms and on street corners.
“We were locked inside Florida’s prisons and the keys were thrown away.
“We live in a state with more billionaires than al- most anywhere in the coun- try, yet, our parents and our teachers didn’t have the basic resources they needed to keep us safe.
“We are demanding that our elected representatives put our safety before corpo- rate profits.
“The Freedom Papers is our vision for a Florida that is able to serve the everyday
needs of its people. Our state spends $55,000 a year to jail our children, and only $7,000 a year to educate them...
“We can live in a state — in a country — where no child is left alone, in the cold, or behind bars, where children feel free and safe when they walk to the store, play in the park, or are on their way to school in the morning.
“We can live in a state where parents and teachers are given everything they need to support the raising of our children.
“We don’t have to let an- other parent lose their child to a bullet, a badge or a dol- lar sign.
“This Florida is possible, but only with a drastic shift in our politician’s priorities - one that values the needs of everyday people, rather than fattening the wallets of a few.”
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2018 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 3