The Enfield Community Advocates hosted Enfield Rock the Vote on Aug. 24.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
ENFIELD — On Saturday, Aug. 24, Enfield Community Advocates hosted Enfield Rock the Vote, a family friendly event to get people registered to vote, educating people on how and when to vote, and bringing the community together.
Taking place at the Enfield Town Green, the event attracted over 300 people throughout the day.
Registered voters were there registering others to vote. Community group Enfield KITE had a kids’ voting station for children to vote. Ben & Jerry’s was also there handing out free ice cream to everybody, with a specific ice cream called “Chrun Out to Vote,” along with a special appearance from Boomer, the Springfield Thunderbirds mascot.
Chair Danielle Girad said, “We were very excited to have this event. This was the first time that Enfield has had an event like this in a very long time when it comes to voter registration. It was very successful, and it was a lot of fun. There was a lot of good information that was given as far as what voting is going to look like for a family, what can our youth expect and what will it look like when they go to a voting booth.”
She continued, “All around, it was a great event for our community to come together and have some fun. This was our first big event that we have put on as Enfield Community Advocates, but we plan to 100% do this again next year.”
Formed in 2023, Enfield Community Advocates is a group of Enfield community members that have come together to take action.
Girad told Reminder Publishing right after last year’s local election, they noticed a huge divide when it came to the Republicans, Democrats and even the unaffiliated side. They noticed there was a huge separation, and they wanted to work with the community to bring everybody together and bridge that gap.
Girad explained, “After the local election, we realized there was a very small number of people that came out to vote. We know that the presidential election tends to be a really big thing and a lot more people come out, but it also needs to start on our local side as far as people coming out to vote.”
The Enfield Community Advocates also noticed the town had more than 7,000 people that are not registered to vote, so getting people out to vote and having them pay attention to the local election – not just the presidential — was important to them.
Enfield resident Amanda Pickett is a mom, wife and Board of Education member. She and her family attended the event and said the turnout was great.
“This was the first of its kind event,” Pickett said. “This event is so important because we need to engage our community in decision making. In November 2023, less than a third of registered voters turned out for our local election, decisions that impact your daily life. We need to better engage residents in decision making, and registering and voting is the first step.”
She went on to say, “We also need to give a ton of credit to Enfield Community Advocates, a coalition of concerned residents who come together, regardless of political affiliation, to engage and problem solve with our community.”
The biggest thing that Girad took away from all of this is seeing and viewing community — how community can come together regardless of opinions and realizing that they do need to get people out to register to vote and to vote in all elections.
With the school year starting, Girad said there comes the Board of Education meetings, Town Council meetings and keeping up with what’s going on locally within those groups. She shared she is hoping to get the state representatives more involved in the town as well and making sure that they realize there is a need for this joint effort — no what matter what side you’re on — to create a better experience in town for everybody.
As far as events go, Girad shared. “We definitely know that this event will happen again next year. Once we set a date, we will let everyone know.”
Contact Enfield Community Advocates at advocacy@enfieldcommunityadvocates.org and visit them on Facebook at facebook.com/EnfieldCommunityAdvocates for more information on town happenings.
