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The Asbury Park Young Democrats will host a kickoff fundraising event 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Asbury Park Yacht Club, located 1000 Ocean Ave.

Headed by Comedian Jess Alaimo, who was founding member of the Women’s Convention, and Kayvon Paul, the Community Outreach Director at Garden State Equality, the Asbury Park Democratic Committee spin off hopes to attract, educate and motivate the city’s younger voting demographic.

“Being involved in the Asbury Park Democratic Committee has been an amazing experience for me, but I couldn’t help but notice the absence of more people my age,” Alaimo, 30, has said. “That’s why Kayvon and I started the Asbury Park Young Democrats. Our city is changing rapidly, and millennials are a huge part of that. The democratic process should be more easily accessible and honestly a little more appealing to people our age. There are a lot of us.”

Special guests will include Sen Vin Gopal, Asbury Park Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn, Freeholder candidate Amber Gesslein, and Monmouth Young Dems President Mariel DiDato.

“Millennials have the potential to be the largest voting block in 2018,” Quinn has said. “They could be game changers. We as the democratic party need to work better to engage them, and they need to take the leap of faith and vote even if they don’t believe their vote counts. It does. And we need to do a better job of explaining to millenials that local elections are sometimes more important than national elections, and are usually decided by less votes than you can count on one hand. It’s a big deal, and the power that people forfeit by not voting is huge.”

Headlining the launch celebration are Renee Maskin of Lowlight, Amy Malkoff of Lyons and Jon Conte.

For more about the Asbury Park Young Democrats, visit their website and Facebook page.

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The Asbury Park Sun is affiliated with the triCityNews newspaper.

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