With the support of Cleveland Metropolitan School District CEO Eric Gordon, GCC this past summer trained 19 CMSD youth about organizing and how to develop relationships with voters through neighborhood canvassing. Their enthusiasm has been palpable. The youth organizers gathering again in October to canvass Cleveland’s Fairfax neighborhood about the mid-term elections and other local issues. They have become a critical element of GCC’s 10-year Battle for Democracy program.

GCC is already looking ahead to the 2024 elections by using 2023 as a year of training for an even larger cadre of neighborhood captains – both adult and youth – who will continue to canvass in low-propensity-voting neighborhoods on an even greater scale than our work in 2020, 2021 and 2022.