MOVE Texas Celebrates 6th Birthday Tuesday Evening at Cherrity Bar
Photos by B Kay Richter - Photographer, SA Sentinel.
June 25, 2019 - Southeast San Antonio
Article By: Jonathan Guajardo - Editor-In-Chief, San Antonio Sentinel
Tuesday night, youth civic-engagement group MOVE Texas celebrated its Sixth Birthday at Cherrity Bar across the street from San Antonio’s Alamodome. Under the waning sunlight of late afternoon, celebrants crowded the chic venue, which has become a staple for its philanthropic business model, satisfying ramen, and handcrafted drinks. Here, attendees enjoyed, music, festivities, and a birthday cake honoring MOVE Texas’ years of service to youth.
MOVE, an acronym that stands for Mobilize, Organize, Vote, and Empower, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization which describes itself as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit, grassroots organization building power in underrepresented youth communities through civic education, leadership development, and issue advocacy.” Founded in 2013 by students at the University of Texas at San Antonio, MOVE Texas has presences in San Antonio, San Marcos, Seguin, Austin, Laredo and Dallas, with a new Houston branch opening soon.
Raven Douglas, Deputy Director of MOVE Texas (Left) and H. Drew Galloway, Executive Director of MOVE Texas (Right). (Photo by B Kay Richter - Photographer, SA Sentinel)
H. Drew Galloway, Executive Director of MOVE Texas, remarked on the non-profit’s success and their upward trajectory. “So tonight we celebrated our sixth birthday. When I started at MOVE in 2016, my very first week we celebrated our third birthday. We had two employees, two fellows, two interns. Tonight we celebrated having a staff of seventeen, having a fellowship class of twenty-four, and an internship class of thirty-one,” said Galloway. “So we are an organization that is led by young people, for young people.”
The evening featured speeches given by Galloway, as well as Steven Lopez, a member of the MOVE Texas Board of Directors and Raven Douglas, Deputy Director of MOVE. “MOVE is now a nationally recognized organization and a national leader in youth organizing,” declared Lopez, in his introductory remarks. “If you thought 2019 was crazy, wait till 2020 comes. We’re going to need everybody’s help and we look forward to joining the fight and still being here keeping Texas moving!”
Joel Mendoza, former District 4 City Council candidate and proud MOVE Texas advocate, described why he sees the organization as a necessity for San Antonio. “They do an amazing job of keeping our generation, millennials, interested in politics and not only that, but being part of our democracy,” said Mendoza. “We’ve got to get people registered to vote to have politicians elected that pretty much represent us and where we’re going.”