Indiana Armstrong Patriots Welcome Guest Speaker

by Jonathan Weaver

Today is the last day to register to vote before the May Primary election, and a Shelocta-based Tea Party group asked a special guest speaker last week how they can get students engaged in ongoing issues.

The Indiana Armstrong Patriots welcomed Turning Point USA Pennsylvania Field Coordinator Carmen Foskey to their Monday, April 13 meeting at the Smith Complex.

While no students were present at the meeting, Foskey said the meeting helped members identify how to approach the younger generation.

“We had a back-and-forth question-and-answer (session) about how you bring political issues down to a student’s level, how to relate complex economic issues in a way that students are able to understand, comprehend and act upon once you have helped (students) tap into that energy they naturally have, giving them a path to follow and get involved,” Foskey said. “It’s one thing to be excited about a cause, energetic, but you have to actually act upon that and do something.”

Foskey said she also spoke with several Patriots after the meeting – which she thought was “very productive.”

Turning Point USA is a youth activism organization headquartered in Chicago that identifies, empowers and organizes high school and college students about free-market, capitalist ideology

A former student columnist for the Turning Point USA blog, Foskey became the Pennsylvania Field Coordinator nearly four months ago.

Originally from Georgia, Foskey said the public speaking and communication skills she is using is good practice for when she attends Brown University in the fall to major in Educational Policy.

With offices in Philadelphia, Foskey spends about 80-90 percent of her time on college campuses.
Current university chapters in Pennsylvania include Penn State – Harrisburg, La Salle University, Temple University and York College of Pennsylvania. Another chapter at Penn State University’s main campus in State College is also to form this fall.