Youth Climate Corps Election Town Hall: Vancouver
School Project | UBC | Certificate in Climate Studies and Action
Climate • Environment & Sustainability • Public Affairs • Advocacy • Event Production • Event Marketing
In collaboration with Lukas Troni, Yeslie Lizarraga, and Katelyn Croy
27 March 2025
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Background
As part of the 2025 capstone cohort of UBC’s Certificate of Climate Studies and Action program, my team and I were tasked with helping our community partner, Climate Emergency Unit, in the efforts of advancing the national-wide campaign for a federally-funded Youth Climate Corps program.
Initially, we scoped our vision for this project to raising awareness of the campaign among our campus community, as well as having our student representatives at the Alma Mater Society, UBC Vancouver’s student union, to publicly endorse the campaign and to use lobbying efforts at the Parliament to advance the campaign’s agenda. However, this vision was challenged by a series of unforeseen changes in the political climate both within the AMS and at the federal level.
After connecting with the campaign’s main organizers in early February, who shared with us their visions of hosting a series of town hall events across Canada to promote the campaign among local communities and to apply political pressure at the dawn of an upcoming federal election, our team pivoted to the idea of hosting the Vancouver town hall, acting as the campaign’s local chapter.
Image: Main event poster, distributed as physical posters and social media posts. Template provided by the national campaign organizers.
Planning & Preparation
As the timeline of the election remained unclear at the early stage of the event, the national organizers wished to have the town halls to take place between late March to early April, leaving a rather short timeframe for the event’s planning and preparation. Therefore, we got into the work right away. While my team members were taking charge of the outreach, communication, and facilitation tasks, I took the initiative to establishing a full, day-to-day timeline for the event logistics, including venue selections, catering options, and promotional actions, as well as creating the website for our local campaign efforts and other promotional materials.
We were delighted when our instructors offered to suggest the whole cohort coming into our support instead of going with the initially planned panel discussions as the final collective class project, and our classmates were also in favour in this idea. This allowed us to enlarge our scope for the event from campus-based to a city-wide community function. Our team was also able to connect with a number of sponsors, partners and grant options, which helped us greatly with realizing our visions and scopes for the event.
Eventually, the event was set to take place on March 27, 2025, at 312 Main, a coworking space and community hub in Downtown Vancouver, and was proposed with a list of panelists, MP candidates, and guests that reflects community voices and political influences we have visioned for the event.
Promotions
The event promotions began as soon as our team wrapped up the early logistic planning and confirmed on event time, themes, functions, and possible venues, and further marketing campaigns went on when more updated confirmations were received.
Initially, the event was mainly promoted among local and campus communities, utilizing the personal networks of the team members and of the classmates. In our individual outreach efforts in contacting with potential partners, sponsors, and guests, our team also asked interested parties to share information about the event, within their organizations and their communities.
As more final details were confirmed, we began to produce more promotional materials, targeting at larger audiences, aiming to increase the marketing outreach. Various promotional approaches were taken, including an increased physical presence on campus and in local communities, the setup of a campaign website, and the creation of social media contents.
Website
Using Squarespace, I was able to quickly establish the website for our team’s campaigning agenda, which was based on our initial campus-based scopes, aiming for promoting the campaign among UBC Vancouver’s student community, and advocating for political actions from student representatives and AMS executives. Later on, as we moved forward with the town hall agenda, a dedicated event page was also set up to provide the public with essential information about the event. The website recorded hundreds of visits throughout the promotional period of the event.
Screenshots: Primary landing page, highlighting the team’s campus- and local-based visions for the campaign.
Snapshots
Page: Open Letter: AMS, providing essential information about the campaign, as well as details of our campus-based objectives.
Page: Townhall, with all essential event details and function rundowns, as well as RSVP information.
Social Media
We maintained an active social media presence throughout the promotional period for the campaign. With the design template provided by the national organizers, I was able to create a number of promotional assets using Adobe Express and Canva, which were used in our marketing campaign on various social media platforms.
In the 3 weeks leading up to the event, the final marketing campaign was launched, where these promotional assets were shared on social media by our team, all members of our cohort, our departments, event partners and sponsors, as well as participating speakers and guests.
Visual Assets
Assets for Instagram/Facebook stories
Assets for Instagram posts, later adopted as design template by national organizers
In addition to Instagram and Facebook, the event was also promoted on LinkedIn and Action Network. On LinkedIn, the event was shared by our community partner’s page, as well as some of the guests and candidates in attendance; while on Action Network, the event recorded 110 RSVPs, exceeding our initial projection.
Outcome & Responses
The town hall event successfully took place on March 27, 2025, with over 100 community members, young leaders, guests, and federal candidates in our attendance. The event logistics were executed smoothly, ensuring a satisfying outcome for the town hall and for the YCC campaign, and we received very positive feedbacks on event functions from all participants.
The event started with a panel discussion on youth employment, the climate emergency, and the affordibility crisis, followed by a question period to all attending federal candidates. The engaging converations and heated atmosphere then continued onto the community dinner and community activities section of the night. And the entire town hall event was captured in a graphic recording.
Overall, the Vancouver town hall was a success, and it was truly rewarding to hear the responses from the candidates, and to see that the Youth Climate Corps campaign advancing on political agendas: three federal parties (Liberal, NDP, Green) have endorsed or supported the program (read article), and legislative efforts have been made in the newly-elected Parliament.