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Students encourage adults to get out and vote

They also polled adults on what issues that affect children they care about the most.

The year will be 2025 Before 11-year-old Chyina Petty will be able to vote.

“I am excited,” the incoming Bearden Middle School student said.

Until then, she’s encouraging others to focus on the issues that matter to children and vote on election day to have their voices heard.

“It can help a lot of people see if their candidate is available and if their candidate has good reasons,” Petty said.

More than 70 students from Knox County elementary schools wanted to know more about the issues Tennesseans cared about most, so they decided to go out and find out for themselves.

“Would you like to vote?” said Micah Holman, a student at Maynard Elementary School, as he asked a passerby on Market Square to take the survey.

Polling dozens of people around downtown Knoxville, the kids asked adults what issues were influencing their votes. From education, youth justice, healthcare, gun violence, and poverty, the kids were on a mission to find out what drives people to the polls.

The students are attending a six-week Freedom School summer program, funded by the Children’s Defense Fund at two of the Great Schools Partnership’s community schools, Sarah Moore Greene and Maynard.

But it was not just here in Knoxville.

Denise Dean, the director of Knoxville’s Freedom School, said the students will be joining thousands of other students across our nation in their participation in the National Day of Social Action.

“While many of us are focused now on the upcoming elections in August, our Freedom School scholars are learning that if they don’t like the way the world is, they can help change it by focusing on their education and by making a positive difference in the world around them,” said Dean. “Each week, the students have learned ways they can make a difference in specific areas of their lives. ‘I can make a difference in myself. I can make a difference in my family. I can make a difference in my country. I can make a difference in my world.’”

The kids also took the survey themselves. The results showed they cared most about gun violence. That is not surprising to their teacher.

“With the school shootings, with the shootings in the neighborhoods in East Tennessee, in East Knoxville, it makes sense that our children are very aware of gun violence and that it hurts,” said Dean. “We’re trying to make a difference by getting more people registered to vote and engaged in the issues that are important to children.”

At the end of the afternoon, the kids held up a banner that read, ‘every vote counts.’

But for now, the students will have to wait a couple more years until they can go to the polls themselves.

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