With just under two weeks to go until California's voter registration deadline, one Pico Union community group is trying to get its neighbors engaged.
With Love Market & Cafe on Vermont and 20th has been holding voter registration drives every weekend since September. Karla Vasquez, With Love's community programs director, said so far she's helped 15 people register and many more check their registration.
Vasquez said she decided to offer registration at the market after not finding many places to register in the community.
"I live in the neighborhood, almost a mile away. I haven't really seen a lot of voter registration opportunities around - Just posters for lavote.net," Vasquez said. "Being where we are and having a lot of freedom to choose what I want to do here as director, I thought that it would be a missed opportunity to not have a voter registration drive."
As director of community programs, Vasquez is in charge of developing community outreach at the market, which opened in March. With Love's goal was to provide more healthy and affordable food options in the Pico Union area, which, though it isn't technically a food desert, is limited in grocery stores. Vasquez took that motivation a step further with outreach programs like "food tours," cooking and yoga classes and of course, voter registration.
"Health isn't just a meal you have or the exercise you make time for," Vasquez said. "It's having avenues to express yourself creatively, but also express yourself in the big world of politics and being civically engaged."
With Love may be providing one of few opportunities to connect with politics in the area. Vasquez elected to become a deputy voter registrar through a training offered at the LA County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office in Norwalk. The training goes over the basics of filling out the voter registration form, and how to avoid simple mistakes that could render one's application invalid.
At the training, she said the staff told her they didn't have many deputy registrars in Pico Union.
"He [the trainer] was really excited," Vasquez said. "He said 'oh wonderful, we have a person now who's going to be in that area.'"
According to the County Registrar's office, it's unlikely Vasquez is the only person trained to register voters in Pico Union. Angie Meserkhani, a community and voter outreach representative with the Registrar, said they have a presence at many local high schools, colleges, junior colleges and churches. But regardless of whether With Love is the only location, the fact that Vasquez is trained is important.
"There are five people in my office. We can't cover all of LA County," Meserkhani said. "Different organizations and concerned citizens that take our training take all these materials back and they can train other people. They can get to the places we can't."
For now, Vasquez said she plans to focus her efforts on getting more people registered at With Love. For her, civic engagement is personal.
"I am a naturalized citizen, so I was not born with the right to vote in this country," Vasquez said. "Once I got it I realized how important legislation was to me. What made my opportunities a reality was policy, voter involvement and people having a say about what they want."
Having a say is important to Meserkhani too. She said she likes to remind people of the importance of elections besides the presidential one.
"The local election affects people more than a federal election does," she said. "If you have a pothole in your street, the president is not going to come fix it. Your local government is what will help you."
"A lot of people are really disillusioned with our candidate options," Vasquez said. "I am too, but that doesn't justify sitting it out."
Vasquez hopes that With Love can become a polling pace in the next election - she missed the deadline to be selected for the November election.
She has two more registration drives planned before the California registration deadline on October 24 - the next two Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. She said she hopes to bring her stack of completed forms up from 15 to 20, but even still, she's satisfied she's helped some people be heard.
"I know that the 15 people who did it are serious and I'm happy to support that," Vasquez said. "I think the point is to stay engaged not matter what."