Our group of interns had a full plate this summer with special elections, resistance, Planned Parenthood and more.

If you happened to stop by the Greenville County Democratic Party (GCDP) office this summer, chances were high that you ran into one of the many interns working with us between June and August.

They worked on a myriad of projects including the Archie Parnell and Jon Ossoff special election races, Planned Parenthood phone banks, Lillian Brock Flemming’s and Russell Stall’s Greenville City Council campaigns, voter registration and data entry, the Resistance Summer effort, inventories and scheduling, and general office support.

The experience was mutually beneficial – not only did an upcoming generation of Democrats learn firsthand about party structure and running for office, but this eager band of hands and voices worked steadily and constructively on behalf of the GCDP, the state party, and our candidates. Two interns joined us from Furman University: Kathleen Smith and Evan Horst. The others were members of our newly formed High School Democrats group.

The summer intern program was the brainchild of Ben Ragan, who served as the intern coordinator for the group and was president of the Greenville High School Democrats; and Henry Lear, now the president of South Carolina Teen Democrats. They were joined by: Rita Ni, Riya Misal, Lindsay Ackerman, Camila Torres, Rund Abdelnabi, Jessica Ni, Amber Magnuson, Xavier Adomatis, Haseeba Karim, Corinne Vicario, Allison Watts, Jack Markowitz, Ethan Magnuson, Mytekiauna Fuller, Josh Woo, Brendon Lee, and Trey Walk.

They may also have been inspired by Russell Stall’s story of being inspired to run for public office when he served as youth coordinator for Max Heller’s mayoral race.

We’re already seeing the leadership potential blossom not only with Henry’s new role at the state level, but Corinne is the current president of the Greenville High School Democrats Council and Josh is communications director for the SC Teen Democrats. If the effort and enthusiasm of the interns this summer is any indication of what’s to come, the future of the Democratic Party is indeed bright!