WESTBROOK, Maine — This year, only five Girl Scouts in Maine earned the most prestigious honor and award a Girl Scout can get in the youth organization: the Gold Award.
Mackinna Campbell from Westbrook is 18 years old and for the past year has been focusing her extra time aside from school to get her peers and other teens involved in the election and voting process.
To do that, she created and gave lectures to students through PowerPoint presentations, worked many hours with the city clerk in her town, enlisted high school juniors and seniors to work at polls with her, and made sure hundreds of teens learned how to navigate the voting system.
"Prior to my project, we didn't really have any high schoolers or youth involved in elections or that part of the city in general, so we built this relationship to try and encourage that," Campbell said. "In the state of Maine, you can register to vote when you are 16 years old now, so that's something that the city as well as the school is really trying to encourage kids to do. Just one last step when you turn 18."
She developed an understanding of the different processes, from local government to the federal level. Campbell accomplished her goal of informing the young generation within her community of just how important they are in the voting process, even if they aren’t yet of voting age.
To earn a Gold Award, a Girl Scout must complete a project that focuses on a relevant community issue they feel passionately about, in a sustainable way.
Campbell discovered another issue facing her community. In addition to the obstacle of election misinformation, she also found a lack of poll workers. In an effort to tackle that problem, she encouraged many people in the community to volunteer in their town or city offices with their city clerks.
"It gave me a lot of new perspective. I got to see from the inside how the process worked and all of the additional work that goes into putting on an election that the public doesn't necessarily see, as well as additional leadership skills with organizing all of the students to go and register and work the polls," the teen said.
Campbell learned that when young people are involved in the election process as poll workers, they are more likely to vote in future elections, so she encouraged more teens her age to participate.
Campbell said 16-year-olds can become poll workers in Maine.
Campbell's effort was shared with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows for future program rollouts in other Maine municipalities to engage the next generation of youth voters.
Campbell was honored with her Gold Award announcement at the Girl Scouts of Maine (GSME) 2023 Annual Celebration on May 13 at Messalonskee Performing Arts Center in Oakland.
To learn more about Campbell’s Gold Award project, click here.
Mackinna recently turned 18 and said she plans to vote next year for the first time on the presidential election.