February and Valentine’s Day are great reminders to share love! Here at Save the Children Action Network (SCAN), we come together every day to celebrate those who we love the most: our volunteers. They know the true meaning of spreading kindness, love and affection not only to their community, but to kids across our country and the world. In the spirit of appreciation, we want to “share the love” with a few of our amazing advocates who have a big heart all year around.
Megan Smith, Idaho
Megan cares deeply about helping kids both in our country and across the globe. She believes it’s crucial to build bipartisan support for kids. In fact, one of her favorite parts about advocating is sharing knowledge with others and reminding them to vote for kids!
Advice we love from Megan: “Anyone can [advocate]! It’s not scary—I was really nervous the first time I met with federal and state leaders, but they are people and their job is to work for us and communicate with us. If you’re prepared, it will go well! Even if you don’t exactly get what you want out of the meeting, you’ve been successful in sharing your message and one day that idea will catch on!”
Akbar Rahmani, Tennessee
Akbar is one of our Student Ambassadors from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He is inspired by leaders like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg because he believes in advocating for our future generation. He is passionate about ensuring children have equal access to early childhood education and seeks to collaborate with fellow advocates to help spread this message.
Advice we love from Akbar: “My advice is just to be personable and try to really connect with the person you are speaking to. This is most easily done by just being yourself…the majority of the time I have done this, people tend to open up and be more engaged with what I am advocating for.”
Maria Mincey, South Carolina
Maria is devoted to giving children the support and attention they need to give them a bright future. She is committed to doing her part in creating a world that is fair and safe for kids. Living in an early voting state, Maria has hit the presidential campaign trail strong! One of her great accomplishments is being recognized by candidates and hearing from them about their plans to invest in kids.
Advice we love from Maria: “My advice would be to say that together we do more and better things and that we all need each other! We all have children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, or we may care a lot about our children’s friends or the children of our neighbors. If the little ones do not have the adults’ support that is a disgrace!”
Nathan Bou, Michigan
Nathan is fueled by seeing the power advocacy has on children. He is all about making the world a better place for kids. He believes access to high-quality early childhood education is key improving our society and progressing ahead. Nathan realizes that education holds the power to transform the world!
Advice we love from Nathan: “Have fun [advocating]! Be yourself! By being your authentic self you’re able to genuinely connect with other potential-advocates and this is where the magic happens.”