Parade to the Polls ™ is a celebration of democracy. Our mission is to bring voters directly to the polls, creating a tradition of voting every single election. We bring young people to the polls from high schools, colleges, concerts, and large-scale events.  The idea began in 2014 after an eager group of high school students convinced one of our organizers to bring them to vote. At this point, our team registered 15,000 young people to vote in a few short months but we knew we wanted to take that action a step further. We recognized at that moment that it is one thing to register young people, but it is a whole different level of civic engagement bringing them to go vote, on the spot … for the first time! Knowing we were on to something special, we teamed up with the “Just Vote” coalition to transform Parade To The Polls ™ . We rented several vans, decked them out in voting swag, and drove around the South and West sides convincing people it was a good idea to jump in our van to go vote. (It actually worked, organizers can be very persuasive). We hit up bus stops, train stops, grocery stores, everywhere young people hung out. We drove up and took them to go vote. After some insane gas bills and recognizing there has to be a bigger, better, more efficient way to bring folx directly to polling locations, we switched to schools and school buses.