This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.

Search form

President Obama Announces “100 Youth Roundtables”

Summary: 
The Office of Public Engagement has put together a great initiative to assure that young Americans of all walks of life can participate in a roundtable discussions about important issues.

This is exciting, folks. A few weeks ago, when President Obama dropped by a Roundtable with Young Americans in Cleveland, Ohio, he announced that he was tasking his Administration with participating in 100 Roundtables all over the country. And over the last 2 weeks we have put together a great initiative to assure that young Americans of all walks of life can participate in a roundtable if they so choose!

Presidents and White Houses of the past have encouraged citizens to debate and discuss issues of the day; it’s one of the great strengths of a free and democratic society. Encouraging citizens to take a more active role in the betterment of American society, President Kennedy said, “The efforts of the government alone will never be enough. In the end the people must choose and the people must help themselves." And speaking directly about young people, President Reagan remarked that, “Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known.”

Young Americans today are the most innovative and creative generation we have ever seen. You have inherited incredible challenges and met them with inspiring solutions. You have used mediums, technologies, and ideas to connect to one another that we could have previously only dreamed about. Back in the day, if you wanted to talk to someone at the White House, you likely would have had to ride your horse up to the front door (there used to be stables here). Now all you have to do is fill out a web form.

Host a roundtable in your community and if you’d like someone from the Administration to join, let us know when and where your roundtable will be by submitting your information at obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/YoungAmericans.

If we can send someone to your roundtable, we’ll let you know about 24-48 hours in advance.

If we can’t – you can hold the roundtable and send us the feedback and sign-in sheets from the toolkit (at obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/YoungAmericans/follow-up) so that we follow up with you.

Our Youth Team here will read it, and we’ll be in touch with all of your participants in the coming weeks with White House conference calls, web chats, and other opportunities to talk with folks all across the Obama Administration on a number of important issues.

Join us!

Kalpen Modi is Associate Director of the Office of Public Engagement