The meeting explored areas regarding what a member of the Young Democrats should do in general, what is expected of the club for the upcoming year and why a Downtown chapter was created.
After brief introductions led by co-founding member journalism freshman Andres Cano, fellow co-founding member nonprofit management junior Joe Pettinato opened the meeting with a disclaimer to the informal setting. He said he wanted to emphasize not so much the formalities of the Young Democrats, but rather the broader gist of why everyone was there.
“One of the reasons I feel I’ve been a life-long democrat is because I have always appreciated the spirit of ‘together we can accomplish more,’” Pettinato said.
Pettinato said he envisions this semester being spent building a group that can start working on giving students an opportunity to get involved in the downtown democratic scene. Furthermore, he wants to utilize this semester to gear up for January, where the Young Democrats will be in a position to reach out to the students at the Downtown campus, Pettinato said.
“Last year I was new to the Downtown campus, just like a lot of people,” Pettinato said. “I spent most of the time getting my feet wet. This year is kind of an off year, but I want to continue to get involved and to get others involved also.”
As a visitor and an advisor, Arizona Young Democrats Vice President Stanley Williams said he was happy to lend a helping hand when the ASU Young Democrats needed it.
“I am here to bridge the gap between state issues and bring them to a local level,” Williams said.
Williams was a seemingly animated addition to the meeting who, with polite passion, said that he was excited to see Young Democrats on the Downtown campus, propelling the democratic movement forward in a positive direction.
“Downtown doesn’t have a specific democratic group yet,” Williams said. “It’s very important for us to reach out to this millennial group.”
Cano typified this notion of the implementing democratic values onto the Downtown campus and said it is imperative for students to simply get the wheels turning.
“The Downtown Phoenix campus is growing fast and there really needs to be a forum for students to be involved in democratic processes and to be engaged politically,” Cano said. “I’m really hoping that young politicians will be able to work on democratic objectives.”
Although there is a lot of work to be done, Cano said, they have a lot of local support from the state party to achieve success.
“We are in a democratic area in downtown Phoenix so there are going to be a lot of opportunities for networking,” Cano said. “We should have our own platform. I want to make sure people are aware of this kind of a group.”
Contact the reporter at jmabercr@asu.edu
