What We Are Doing

Our founder, Kailyn Gore,  became interested in civics as she prepared to enter seventh grade. She followed the 2016 election process with fascination from the primary races to election day. She spent her lunch period walking around the blacktop conducting polls. With her marble notebook by her side, she went from group to group, questioning each person about their political views and their thoughts on the upcoming election. After thirty polls she was disappointed and annoyed that her peers did not care about their government officials or the election. As she looks back now, she realizes that her expectations of her peers at twelve and thirteen years of age were a bit outlandish. Despite her disappointment, this experience provided unexpected inspiration: Kailyn discovered her desire to advocate for students’ civic education.

Kailyn has not been able to pinpoint when and where the idea for Civic Wave came from. She believes that the idea for Civic Wave derived from an accumulation of experiences she’s had with her peers at school, her family, and conversations with voters while door knocking for several political campaigns. She created Civic Wave to meet multiple goals for her generation: become informed voters, understand their rights, and advocate for what they believe in. She hopes that as students learn, they will appreciate the need to protect those less fortunate. They will ask hard questions, even if we do not yet have all the answers. They will become comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. She understands that starting Civic Wave and working to pass bills that advance civic education will not accomplish these tasks alone, but she believes it is a good place to start.

Civic Wave officially became a non-profit organization during the Spring of 2020. Kailyn worked with her step-father, Tim, to go through the legal process of starting the organization. Once the legal work was handled, Kailyn began to search for a partner that would understand her creative vision for her passion project. Our Graphic Design/Social Media Lead, Sam Iannone, soon began working on an Instagram page to get the word out. Kailyn began writing to the sponsors of bills NJ S237 and S854 in hopes of being able to collaborate on approaches in order to get the bills passed. Kailyn has since been in contact with Senator Troy Singleton, one of the sponsors of the bills, and his team to ask questions about the pieces of legislation; Senator Singleton even offered up his time to be interviewed on Civic Wave’s Instagram by Kailyn. Kailyn worked together with the Senator Singleton, and continued finding new ways to organize so that bills NJ S237 and S854 passed . We, as Civic Wave, are looking forward to sharing with you the unique ideas and opportunities that we are working on in the near future. We hope you will support us through this exciting journey.