Garamendi internship: Ten hours a week can change your future

By Ashley Han,
Bluedevilhub.com Editor-in-Chief–

The Student Activist Program is an eight week long internship for high school and college students that allows students to work in a professional environment, learn how to conduct phone banks, organize events, get involved in the community and campaign for Congressman John Garamendi.

“To summarize what this program is about, it’s about teaching students how to be leaders in the community through political organizing […] We’re a very young organization; we have a lot of energy and we teach these kids how to be professional,” Field Organizer Thomas Slabaugh said.

Slaubaugh stresses that this program is not only about working ten hours a week and getting someone elected, but it is also about teaching young students leadership skills that will benefit them in the future.

However, this is not the first time students are able to learn these skills. In 2012, when Garamendi first ran for California district three, there was a program called the Student Ambassador Program. It was a similar to this program, but the structure was a lot different.

“The field organizer, who was running the high school program in the primary before me, and I spent a lot of time looking back in 2012, looking in the primary seeing what worked well, what didn’t work well and created this program for the kids,” Slabaugh said.

Many students have benefitted from this program like junior Isaac Shih from Da Vinci High. Shih was a student leader in the primary election, and because of his excellent performance, Slabaugh offered him a student officer position over the summer.

Shih works about 15 hours a week and is responsible for training new student activists and overseeing the program. He has learned a lot of skills that would help him in business, politics and communications.

“I saw [Shih] come in on the first night; he could barely say a word to me. We were doing an activity [and he was] stuttering [and] nervous. Over the course of this program, just in the primary even, he was able to grow, gain confidence in himself, and gain respect from his peers. That just built him up, and he now is leader in this program,” Slabaugh said.

Similarly, other students have learned valuable experience and knowledge about politics. Senior Sydney Maguire is one of the student officers and has successfully presented to many classes at Davis High.

Maguire has made close friendships through this program and actually met Garamendi in person. This program has reaffirmed her idea of going into politics because at first she was not sure because of the negative connotation some politicians have, but getting involved has showed her that politics is something she is passionate about.

“It was really cool just getting to meet him. He’s so warm and inviting and friendly and I got to introduce him to at our Day of Action. To me it was a big deal, like introducing a congressman; who has the chance to do that?” Maguire said.

Senior Fernando Delgado from Pioneer High is another student officer and he joined after the representatives from Davis came to his class in Woodland.

“I feel like [this program] definitely opened my eyes as to what it is. You think politics and it’s kind of boring but it’s more about the community […] It’s more about us rather than [the politicians],” Delgado said.

Slabaugh believes that what these students learn and experience from this program is the main “difference between our campaign and a lot of other campaigns.”

“We believe some 15 year old who comes off the street from Davis High School, who is a sophomore in high school, can have as much impact or more impact than a 24 year old coming from UC Davis,” Slabaugh said.