by Friends of Kevin Killer
25 Supporters 1,180 Raised $
We believe candidates with strong, sound stances deserve our support, and this is a race where your dollars can make the difference.
Kevin Killer is a stunning young organizer born, raised, and educated in South Dakota. He is a rising star in the Democratic Party and in the national progressive movement.
Here is a little snippet about Kevin from the American Prospect:
Killer, now 28, decided to take time off from school at the University of Colorado in Denver to be a field organizer for Tom Daschle’s senatorial campaign, working in Native American outreach on Pine Ridge. He brought other youth from the reservation on board with the campaign, going door to door to educate and mobilize voters in their community.“Since we were much younger than the people we were talking to, we held them responsible,” Killer says. “We said, if we’re this young and we’re voting, then you should be voting. It’s all of our futures.” Though Daschle narrowly lost re-election, turnout on the reservation increased by 50 percent in 2004, in large part because of the door-to-door work of Killer and his peers. Working on the campaign on Pine Ridge convinced Killer that he should transfer to Oglala Lakota College, the local tribal college, where he could continue mobilizing the young adults who make up more than half the reservation’s population. The college includes 1,500 students on 10 small commuter campuses spread over a reservation about the size of Connecticut, and its students experience daily the reservation’s troubles, including a 75 percent unemployment rate. Killer needed to work a part-time job at Pizza Hut to attend the college, which offers far fewer political resources than larger schools.His organizing increased voter registration at Oglala Lakota College by 15 percent during the 2006/2007 school year alone, and through the YP4 fellowship, Killer landed a position with Campus Camp Wellstone, a national program that trains students to become political organizers, where he is now helping launch a new national Native American leadership program. In April, he’ll be bringing Campus Camp Wellstone to Oglala Lakota to train students from all of the school’s 10 campuses in how to register their peers to vote and mobilize them on the key issues in preparation for the 2008 elections. He was also elected president of the YP4 fellowship network last year and continues to serve as a senior fellow, and has been working with the organization to create more opportunities for students like him.
“Since we were much younger than the people we were talking to, we held them responsible,” Killer says. “We said, if we’re this young and we’re voting, then you should be voting. It’s all of our futures.”
Though Daschle narrowly lost re-election, turnout on the reservation increased by 50 percent in 2004, in large part because of the door-to-door work of Killer and his peers. Working on the campaign on Pine Ridge convinced Killer that he should transfer to Oglala Lakota College, the local tribal college, where he could continue mobilizing the young adults who make up more than half the reservation’s population. The college includes 1,500 students on 10 small commuter campuses spread over a reservation about the size of Connecticut, and its students experience daily the reservation’s troubles, including a 75 percent unemployment rate. Killer needed to work a part-time job at Pizza Hut to attend the college, which offers far fewer political resources than larger schools.
His organizing increased voter registration at Oglala Lakota College by 15 percent during the 2006/2007 school year alone, and through the YP4 fellowship, Killer landed a position with Campus Camp Wellstone, a national program that trains students to become political organizers, where he is now helping launch a new national Native American leadership program. In April, he’ll be bringing Campus Camp Wellstone to Oglala Lakota to train students from all of the school’s 10 campuses in how to register their peers to vote and mobilize them on the key issues in preparation for the 2008 elections. He was also elected president of the YP4 fellowship network last year and continues to serve as a senior fellow, and has been working with the organization to create more opportunities for students like him.
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