CLC Student Senate awarded $2,000 in LeadMN Democracy Shark Tank event

Central Lakes College Student Senate was awarded $2,000 of seed funding to push forward their voting initiatives during a recent LeadMN Democracy Shark Tank event.

At the event, several campus teams developed ideas and plans to support student voter engagement initiatives during the 2018 election. They pitched those ideas to a panel of “sharks” that invested $13,000 worth of seed funding to help support campuses’ work.

With the funding award, the CLC Student Senate will focus on three main events to help create civically engaged students. These events will focus on nonpartisan activities such as voter registration, voter education and ballot access.

“In the past, the Central Lakes College Student Senate has done a remarkable job of registering our students to vote, but after reviewing our voter data, we see that many of those students did not take the necessary steps to cast a ballot,” said Erich Heppner, Director of Student Life at CLC. “We would like to continue to build upon our past success with voter registration, but to also find innovative ways to get students to the polls.”

The LeadMN Growing Voters project seeks to make voting habit forming in young people through a long-term approach of civic education, creating civic agency and tearing down institutional barriers that prevent students from voting.