By Pamela Maldonado, Voter Services
The Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Juno Beach played host to an unforgettable day at this year’s TurtleFest, its annual extravaganza. Many thousands of visitors soaked up the sunshine at the event, which celebrated Loggerhead’s work in caring for injured sea turtles and promoting public awareness about steps necessary to care for their habitat and promote a successful nesting season. It also proved to be a melting pot of community spirit and civic engagement, bringing conservation-minded non-profits and local vendors together, along with food trucks, games for kids and amazing live music all day.
Our LWVPBC table caught the attention of both kids and parents. With our patriotic dress-up station, little ones gleefully donned red, white, and blue outfits, transforming into pint-sized patriots for pictures. In between photo ops, volunteers took the opportunity to engage their parents on a different level. Newly armed with information about upcoming elections and changes to the voting laws, many voters exclaimed: “Thank you! I didn’t know that!”
The Supervisor of Elections’ table was next to ours, so when someone needed to register or update, we walked them over there. The collaboration worked out perfectly. Most people were registered, but by concentrating on voter education, I think we had an even larger impact. Most importantly, we made sure to tell everyone to spread the word about changes to vote-by-mail.
