The Love Party formed when leaders of cultural, service and social action groups came together around the idea that the SGA, as an institution the student body elects, should be one the student body loves. The Student Government Association should be active and visible, on the front lines building winning coalitions to advance issues that broadly benefit the student body. It should also be transparent, personable and engaging, in constant search of new ways to partner with students and student groups, empowering us to shape the policies that affect our daily lives.
Members of our ticket have already been making great things happen on campus. We started the Food Recovery Network, which salvages unavoidable food waste from the South Campus Diner, and this year donated over 4,000 meals to a local homeless shelter. We founded the Love Movement, which holds community-building service events like Spread the Love, which brought 350 Terps to McKeldin Mall to make 6,200 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the local homeless. We rallied students into SGA meetings in support of the DREAM Act and other resolutions. We mobilized students to urge professors to assign cheaper textbooks. We helped found the Rooftop Garden. And we lobbied Dining Services for fresher, local and ethically-sourced food in both dining halls.
We did this with an SGA that has, at times, passively given us the thumbs up, but has fallen shy of fully leveraging the power and resources it has to help us help the community. But instead of complaining, we decided to run for seats and turn the SGA into a proactive organization that takes strong stances and propels the initiatives of students.
One priority of the Love Party is to establish a Textbooks Task Force of representatives from the SGA, student groups and Deans’ Student Advisory Councils to lobby deans and faculty, urging them to be conscious of how much they are asking students to spend on books and suggesting viable options for more affordable texts.
We will give the student voice a megaphone, mobilizing students and increasing our presence in Annapolis and at city council meetings. And since SGA resolutions don’t mean anything without follow-through by the executive branch, we will have a more consistent and thorough lobbying effort for every resolution passed in the SGA legislature.
We also plan on expanding the aforementioned Food Recovery Network from recovering and donating our unavoidable food waste at one diner to having pick-ups at all diners and eateries on the campus by enlisting a diverse array of student groups and fraternities to each adopt a day at a diner. We have received permission to expand and hope to make this a flagship effort, uniting diverse groups in the name of sustainability and service. Our goal is for the university to donate at least 20,000 meals to shelters next year.
We will also make a Student Group of the Week Award and create a Community Improvement Fund where students can apply for mini-grants to improve their dorms and the university community as a whole.
And, if elected, by May 8 we will post a timeline on the SGA website for each of our initiatives with benchmarks so you can hold us accountable.
This university needs more than the status quo. The Love Party has the experience, the ideas and the passion to reverse the cynicism and to be an SGA the student body loves. Help us make this university even better. Read our full platform at www.LoveUMD.com. “Like” us on Facebook. Volunteer with our campaign. And vote.
Ben Simon is the presidential candidate for the Love Party and is a junior government and politics major. He can be reached at ben dot lee dot simon at gmail.com.
