PROVIDENCE - The Rhode Island Young Democrats - www.riyoungdems.org - announced today the election of Meghan Grady (23, Barrington) as president, Kimberly Ahern (25, Providence) as vice-president and Eric Coury (25, East Providence) as national committeeman. They are replacing outgoing president Andy Andujar (29, Providence), vice-president Matt Jerzyk (31, Providence) and national committeeman Julian Dash (30, Providence).
"We felt that now is an appropriate time to pass the torch to a new generation," Andujar said. "For the last three years, we have mobilized young people by the thousands to register to vote and to come out and vote for Democrats like Sheldon Whitehouse in 2006 and Barack Obama in 2008. And, there are more Democrats in the General Assembly than ever before."
"More than 30,000 young voters registered to vote in the last 18 months." said Jerzyk. "And the Young Democrats were not only instrumental in registering young people, but we organized hundreds of young people to get on buses to carry the battleground state of New Hampshire for Obama and solicited the help of people like Martin Sheen to do robocalls encouraging young people to come out and vote."
"We are incredibly grateful for the three years of leadership that Andy, Matt and Julian have given our organization," Grady said. "They did what all great leaders do: leave the organization in a much stronger position than how they found it. Our new leadership team hopes to do the same."
The rest of the board of the Young Democrats remains the same: Anthony Colaluca (25, Coventry), treasurer; Rich Blott (31, Narragansett), political director; and William Pierce (20, Warwick), Diversity chair.
There are currently three vacancies on the board for secretary, national committeewoman and communications director. The Young Democrats are encouraging all registered Democrats between the ages of 18 and 35 to submit letters of interest for any of these positions to riyoungdems@gmail.com before Friday, December 5th.
