Everyone remembers their first time voting, their first time getting involved in our country\u2019s democratic process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So Thursday will be memorable for hundreds of South Florida high school students, thanks to the Miami Heat and one local school\u2019s get-out-the-vote effort.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Led by Heat mascot Burnie, roughly 700 students from various high schools marched through the campus of Miami Dade College Kendall Campus to the early voting polling place there.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt great, I mean I just turned 18 a month ago, now I feel like I have more responsibilities now and I want to be a true American,\u201d said Alexander Role, a senior at Coral Reef Senior High.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt felt very empowering, like I was able to speak like, my voice and my thoughts just through a vote,\u201d added Camila Alfaro, a student at Westland Hialeah Senior High.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her classmate, Joe Ferrer, said, \u201cIt feels like you\u2019re doing something right for your country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was fun, I love using my voice for politics,\u201d said Destiney Branch, a senior at Coral Reef Senior High.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Miami Heat legend Alonzo Mourning told us this initiative is important to the Heat organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people that made tremendous sacrifices for us to have this particular right, some of \u2018em even lost their lives,\u201d Mourning said. \u201cSo it\u2019s important for the kids to exercise that right and let their voices be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n
They\u2019re on the same page at Pembroke Pines Charter High\u00a0 School. For the tenth election in a row, teachers organized a trip to the polls for the seniors who are eligible to vote. The school is located, conveniently, next door to the library where early voting is taking place. So led by the JROTC flag corps, dozens of students took the short walk to cast their ballots.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I\u2019m pretty excited,\u201d said senior Nicole Martinez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a great milestone, having the right to vote is a great privilege to have,\u201d added senior Jean Paul Madrid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of the students told us they have issues on their minds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLike you know when it comes to the teachers\u2019 salary in Broward County, that is something that I think is very important and I think we can feasibly pass this so I\u2019m very hopeful about that,\u201d said senior Finn Crosby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The young demographic is notoriously apathetic about voting, so it\u2019s encouraging to see so many kids getting involved and perhaps becoming lifelong participants in our democracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone remembers their first time voting, their first time getting involved in our country\u2019s democratic process.\u00a0 So Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2715,123,125,124],"class_list":["post-442342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-elections","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}