CLEVELAND — Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day and United Way of Greater Cleveland took part by hosting a voter registration event outside its office.

Maryam Kiefer, United Way’s Director of Public Policy, explained why their organization cares about increasing voter registration.

“We provide funding for—philanthropic funding—to community-based organizations,” she said. “Those organizations are still impacted by the policies at the county, the city level, the state level, and the federal level. So it’s incredibly important for us to be active and engaged in that conversation and in that space.”

Maxwell Breckner and Kaylee Kuwalu are two first-time voters that registered Tuesday.

Breckner explained why he came out to sign up. 

“I came out here so I could be an active participant in our democracy today,” he said.

Breckner and Kuwalu both agreed that voting is an important part of being an adult. Kuwalu expressed her reasons why she believes in using her voice to vote. 

“For me, voting is very important just because it gives you a voice and every person, every citizen, should have a voice in the country they’re living in,” she said. 

In 2020 there were  8,073,829 registered Ohio voters and United Way has hopes to increase that number this year. Breckner believes anyone that can vote should. 

“If you want change and your change isn’t going to come without your voice and your vote,” he said. 

The last day to register for the general election in November is Oct. 11.