August Hutchins ’26 missed the first week of school, but he had a pretty good excuse: While his Guilford classmates were settling into the new academic year, August was interviewing politicians and policy makers at last week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

More than 200 social media content creators were invited to last week’s convention and granted media access. August was one of 15 content creators working for Civic Influencers, a nonpartisan group whose mission is to engage and encourage students to register and vote.

One study shows this election cycle will introduce an estimated 40 million new eligible voters to the country’s election process. August says he wanted to educate viewers of his Instagram and TikTok posts rather than persuade them to vote one way or another.

“It was such an inspiring and wonderful opportunity to meet so many people and sit in on discussions about policy,” he says.

August says he was given permission by Civic Influencers to cover topics he was passionate about. He spent the three days he was in Chicago doing just that, attending caucuses and interviewing politicians and policy makers on climate change, refugees and immigrants, women and LGBTQ+ rights.

Civic Influencers focus their efforts on college campuses in swing states like North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania to mobilize youth voters.

“Voters my age think they can’t have an impact, but studies show that it doesn’t take a lot of voters my age to swing a national election one way or another – even fewer in local races,” August says. “That’s pretty powerful to me to think we have that power.”

August says that despite being a large voting block, he saw very few young people inside the convention. “We need to change that regardless of what party you support,” he says. “The next four years will impact us just as much as it will older voters.”

He plans on spending the next 10 weeks at Guilford reaching out to classmates on the importance of voting, helping students register and getting them to the polls.

“It’s hard not to come back from the convention and not be inspired,” he says. “Now I want to inspire others.”