My Internship With Al Lawson's Congressional Campaign

During the 2008 presidential election I fell in love with politics, allowing me to make the decision to major in political science and become a public servant. My dream job is to run and be elected to the United States Congress. When participating in the requirements for the Garnet and Gold Scholars Society, I realized that my experiences in services, leadership, and an internship has greatly complemented each other on the fact that they involve some form of politics and working with or for a public servant. This is because, I completed my internship requirement with the Al Lawson for Congress Campaign, I completed the majority of my service hours with the Florida Democratic Party, and I’m serving as the Director of Public Policy with the

This is an important task because we went out to local community events, neighborhoods, senior centers, and apartment complexes to register people to vote, regardless of their party affiliation, age, race, gender, social-economic statues, or disabilities. Registering people to vote closely aligned with the work I did while interning with the Al Lawson’s Congressional Campaign, because I participated in phone banking and canvassing, as well as writing the scripts for these tasks. With the Al Lawson campaign, we reached out to individuals that were already registered to vote. If it was not for people volunteering their time to register people to vote, then the campaign would struggle to find people to talk to. We would have to use random lists of people to call or knock on random people’s door. Thankfully, with voter registration it allows for the campaign to easily target potential voters, such as registered democratic

I absolutely loved my internship, my volunteer work, and my leadership role. I learned through these experiences that even the smallest person may make a difference in their community. I know this sounds a little cheesy, but it’s true. In my leadership role with the Campaign to Keep Guns Off Campus, I worked to engage students in the importance of lobbying their local elected officials. It is my job to train and create the materials that will be used when lobbing the state congressional members. After being trained the members of the organization and I would attend and speak at committee hearings to oppose the passage of bills that would allow firearms on college campus. We would also meet individually with elected officials and their staff to inform them as to why our cause was so important. When I first began working with the organization I was not too sure how much of a difference we could make, we were just college students. However, as time passed my perception changed, I learned that many of the elected officials wanted to meet with us and hear our opinion even members who were on the opposite side. The elected officials thought it was important to hear student’s views because they are the people to most likely be affected by these laws. It was nice to see that my opinion actually