# Philly nonprofit turns to superhero to reach young voters ahead of midterms

How do you get young people to care about voting? One Philadelphia nonprofit is betting on a superhero.

Vote That Jawn, a nonprofit organization that works to register eligible young voters in Pennsylvania, unveiled its answer Oct. 14, a few weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm election. The group premiered “Superjawn,” an animated short film, in a classroom at the Community College of Philadelphia.

Before the screening, writer and director Vincent Nguyen asked the more than two dozen young people in the room, “Who here has never voted before?”

Nearly every hand went up.

Cue Superjawn.

The 58-second film follows a young woman superhero who takes on the forces of apathy in a diner. She fights citizens who insist their votes don’t matter, using “I Voted” stickers and a giant Liberty Bell pitchfork.

## Finding Your Jawn

Vote that Jawn commissioned Nguyen to create a project that he says had the “goal of reaching the Black and brown communities of Philadelphia to encourage them to vote,” he said.

He and five other young people worked for three months to bring it to life.

“Exercising your right to vote and being a part of different initiatives that focus on community building \[and\] advocacy is so important,” he said. “I think using your vote is just another way to advocate for people who aren’t able to advocate for themselves.”

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Vote that Jawn was founded in the Spring of 2018, as a pop-up initiative to encourage young voters to hit the polls by author and educator Lorene Cary.

She said she wants each young person to have their own “jawn,” an issue that they care deeply about and want to see addressed on the ballot.

“Our aim is to take this beautiful work and have it as fairy dust over the election,” Cary said. “ It captures the badass nature of Philadelphia \[and\] it also captures the energy of youth. The fact that you can say we want our governance, we want to take it for our future, we want it, we have ideas.”

Cary restarted the organization in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a new goal of registering 10,000 young voters. Beyond voting, #VoteThatJawn aims to motivate18-year-olds and other first-time voters to become civically involved.

“Young people will see that we can talk about voting, registering, and elections in a language that is fun, energetic, smart, and truthful,” she said.

## The Importance of Pennsylvania 

Throughout the event, Nguyen and other organizers emphasized the deep importance of the youth vote in the upcoming election. An estimated 592,000 voters between 18 and 24 made it to the polls in Pennsylvania in November 2024, when the state played a decisive role in the presidential election that sent Donald Trump back to the White House for a second presidential term.

One of Nguyen’s personal inspirations was his time volunteering with the Woori Center, a nonprofit organization based in Lansdale PA that works with Korean and Asian American communities to achieve social, racial and economic justice through a variety of programs including legal support, ESL classes and food assistance.

When he was 15 years old, he got involved with the Center and says that the work he did there made him realize how important it is to ensure that marginalized voices get amplified at the polls.

“When I started going to college campuses \[with the Woori Center\] to do voter registration, \[the students\] really had no idea why their vote mattered,” he said.

Now a Junior at Lehigh University, Nguyen is still motivated by that work. Back then, he observed how some college students were not as civically engaged as they were made out to be, and he wanted to understand the disconnect. As he looked around the room of young students watching his film, he says he felt hopeful.

“I’m honestly happy that almost every one of the students are new voters,” he said. “I hope the event impacted them. I hope seeing how comfortable we were talking about voting makes a difference \[for them, and that it helps\] remove that tension.”

![](https://phillyn-media.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/30142547/Vincent-with-Student-1620x1080.jpg)

Nguyen wants viewers to acknowledge just how much people care about voting.

“I hope it gets them thinking: why do people care so much? Should I care like this?” he said. “That’s how I thought back in high school, because I had that mindset of, ‘Oh, it’s just one vote.’”

Students in attendance took home stickers, t-shirts and posters. Their answers in the Q&A session following the screening made clear that many felt inspired by the film, which was exactly what Nguyen and his team had hoped for.

“It’s your right. Why would you let that opportunity go?” he said.

The 2026 midterm elections are on Tuesday, November 3rd.