By Frances Vanderploeg (contact)

Thu, Aug 28, 2008 (midnight)

Frances Vanderploeg

Kayla Erickson, 8, poses for a group picture with her “I’m voting for Kids” sign at Robert Taylor Elementary School.

With the help of children at Robert Taylor Elementary School Aug. 22, the Every Child Matters organization moved a few steps closer to reaching its goal of 150,000 handprints by Sept. 16.

The children's handprints are meant to represent the number of children in need in Nevada. They plan to display the handprints at the "Step-Up-4-Kids" event taking place Sept. 16. A Southern Nevada location had not been set.

Julio Luna, a student worker for Every Child Matters, said the point of the organization is to advocate for children's issues during the local and national political campaigns.

"A lot of people are so passive," he said. "Everyone's busy, so we try to come to them."

The group is non-partisan, he said. It does research on where local and national candidates stand on education issues. From there, the group tries to get the information to the public through fliers, handouts, e-mails and community events, he said.

Taylor Principal Janet Dobry said she met with representatives of Every Child Matters at a Communities in Schools event. She liked what the group was trying to do, and offered the day of her school's kindergarten registration and open house to collect more handprints.

Because the kindergarten parents are often new to parenting, they don't necessarily know who best represents education matters, Luna said, making Taylor's registration event a perfect opportunity to reach out.

Most of the children at the event said they enjoyed an opportunity to leave their handprints, while also seeing the classrooms they would occupy once school started Aug. 25.

Frances Vanderploeg is a reporter for the Home News. She can be reached at 990-2660 or frances.vanderploeg@hbcpub.com.