Last fall, when hiking thirty kilometers through the jungles of Kenya, Brian Goldberg '99 resolved to help his generation appreciate the freedom that America's democracy affords them. This fall, he and two friends began “Bike for Youth Votes,” a cycling expedition from Vancouver to San Diego designed to raise awareness about the importance of voting.
A political science major at Union, Goldberg had applied for a Watson fellowship to study ecotourism after graduation. When he didn't win the fellowship, he set out to create his own overseas opportunity, enrolling in a wilderness-based leadership program in Kenya called the National Outdoor Leadership School. After completing the program, Goldberg contacted Jock Conly '71, whom he had read about in an article in Union College magazine. Conly had worked as a diplomat in Nairobi, and he helped Goldberg obtain a volunteer assignment within Kenya. “It was a wonderful Union connection,” Goldberg says.
Goldberg found a position in a small Kenyan village helping a grass-roots organization there explore opportunities for ecotourism. Living with a family in exchange for his help, Goldberg worked with villagers to determine if a forest adjacent to the village could be used to generate income. “There was a lot of logging there, but this group was trying to find ways to get income from their forest so that the forest still stands,” he explains. Goldberg helped the leader of the organization set up an e-mail account, and soon the group received a British Petroleum conservation grant worth thousands of dollars.
Goldberg left Kenya with a powerful realization of all that America offers its citizens. “The people I met in Kenya were just amazed by our country,” Goldberg says. “I met young people who had dreams that were really impossible for them; they didn't feel that they could achieve them. Young people in America have a lot going for them, but I don't feel that they appreciate it. I want to somehow get Americans — especially American youth — to appreciate what we do have.”
The issue hit closer to home for Goldberg when a referendum to build a new school in his hometown of Madison, Conn., failed by just 300 votes. When Goldberg talked with youths in his hometown, he was frustrated by their apathy about local and national politics. “I didn't feel that anybody cared about the upcoming election,” he says — a feeling that strengthened when he looked at some national numbers: just thirty-two percent of eligible eighteen- to twenty-four-year-olds voted in the 1996 election, and less than half of Americans that age are registered to vote.
That's when he came up with the idea for Bike for Youth Votes.
With Bike for Youth Votes, Goldberg hopes to register one youth voter for every mile of the 1776-mile journey from Vancouver, B.C. to San Diego. Riding with friends Benjamin Burder and Jonas Parker, the Bike for Youth Votes team plans to stop at schools and colleges along their route, encouraging youths to register to vote.
Goldberg admits that the idea will be a challenge, but he plans to focus on local issues to illustrate the individual as well as the societal impact of the government. “When my parents were my age, with the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, they could see how government was impacting their life directly. I feel that today it is harder for my generation to see the daily impact of the powers of government. Yes, we pay taxes. Yes, we have educational requirements. Yes, we have speed limits, but I don't feel like our individual lives are being touched directly by government to the point that they were for my parents' generation.”
Perhaps this is best demonstrated by a question Jesse Jackson asked when he visited Union in 1998 (and Goldberg was still a student). Jackson asked members of the audience to stand up if they were registered to vote. A significant number of students stood. Then he asked those who were registered in Schenectady — where they were living for four years — to stand. Of the 900 students there, about a dozen stood. “That really struck me,” Goldberg says. “I actually registered in Schenectady after that.”
Goldberg hopes to make the same emphasis on the importance of local as well as state and national politics in the communities he visits with Bike for Youth Votes. “If we can go into someone's community, learn about the local issues, and show them that the power is in their backyard, we can make a difference. It's at the local level that a vote can be even more valuable because only a few hundred or a few thousand people are deciding an issue.”
Bike for Youth Votes has teamed with the virtual learning network Globalearn.com to share their enthusiasm — and their results — with the world. Goldberg and his partners will be uploading journals, questions, and photographs to their “virtual classroom” along the way. (To learn more about Bike for Youth Votes, visit their Web site at www.bikeforyouthvotes.org.)
Goldberg traces his determination to lessons learned at Union, where he was one of the students to organize the Coffeehouse, a small, informal stage for professional bands and campus performers. “I learned that if there is something you want to do, as cheesy as it sounds, if you work hard enough, you can do it.”