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	Freedom's Answer

Dear Colleague:

I am writing to introduce you to Freedom’s Answer, an exciting new service-learning program in civics and community service. I hope you make it a priority of your school for next year -- just as it is a priority of Law, Education, and Peace for Kids (LEAP-Kids).

Freedom’s Answer is totally nonprofit, nonpartisan program to engage young people in our political process in the name of those who have risked their lives for American freedom in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11. Each high school is encouraged to create a Youth Voter Corps (open to all students willing to follow the guidelines) to do any or all of three things:

• Make sure all school mates are registered to vote when they turn 18;

• Volunteer to be trained by local election officials to serve as non-partisan poll workers on Election Day; and

• Starting on September 11, 2002, be part of a massive non-partisan voter registration and turnout drive to achieve the largest non-presidential year voter turnout in U.S. history -- to show the world (and our own children) that the United States and freedom are as strong as ever.

Freedom’s Answer is supported by virtually the entire media, education and political communities -- from AOL Time Warner to Rock the Vote, America’s Promise, the Points of Light Foundation, American Association of School Administrators, American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, National Council for Social Studies, and on and on. Its optional curriculum materials have been prepared in an unprecedented joint collaboration between the Center for Civic Education and the Newspapers in Education program of the Newspaper Association of America.

All of it is provided in virtual-turn key fashion to you by the Freedom’s Answer.net website, where you will be able to get all the information and all the materials you will need to take part.

You will find ready participants among the student leadership of your school. Freedom’s Answer is also a high priority on the National Association of Student Councils. We hope that you will make it possible for every student in your school to take part.

The key to start is to review the program on FreedomsAnswers.net and then designate a schoolwide coordinator for your school’s Youth Voter Corps. Some candidates might be a social studies teacher, student council advisor, or someone with a deep interest in encouraging young people to participate in the political system. Interested parents might also be encouraged to help out.

There are four very big reasons for every high school to take part:
• It makes young people a part of the political process and it empowers students in a way that means they will be likely voters tomorrow;
• As volunteer poll workers it engages young people and helps meet a human resources problem election officials have at the polls on Election Day;
• It give the students (and all of us encouraging them) a way to do something concrete as a reaction to the attack on our country; and
• Freedom’s Answer gives all of us an extraordinary way to teach what civics and community are all about.

So, please be a part of Freedom’s Answer, go to the website, pick your coordinator and help your students make the United States and even better place.

Thank you,

David Keller Trevaskis
Executive Director
LEAP-Kids

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