College junior Sarah Martin sees volunteering during this year's presidential campaign as a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity, and she isn't letting it slip by.
Behind the flyers, clipboards and Locust Walk tables are an especially dedicated few - students who are giving up their weekdays and weekends, their nights and days, to get Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, elected.
"If I failed all my classes that would mean nothing to me - this election affects the world," said Martin, who works at the Obama campaign Pennsylvania headquarters downtown.
Pennsylvania is seen as a critical swing state, where polls indicate Obama holds a slight edge over Republican nominee Sen. John McCain. Among young voters, Obama holds a considerable lead, and some young supporters are working intensely on his campaign.
Martin is one of them, and spends nearly 17 hours a week working at a "desk job" organizing out-of-state volunteers, where she sees mostly "middle-class, average Americans" coming in to help.
"It's not as hustle-and-bustle as you might think," she said. "There's no eureka moment."
Despite the grunt work involved in the daily volunteer activities, students are seeing real results.
Eric Ross, a College junior who is the communications director for Penn for Obama, organized the Penn Democrats' New Student Orientation voter drive, where he estimates more than 900 students -mostly freshmen - were registered.
And while most of these hard-working volunteers have always been Obama supporters, some haven't.
Chelsea Silverman, a College senior, supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, but she now spends her weekends campaigning for Obama and U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy in nearby Bucks County.
"I'm a hard-core Democrat," said Silverman on her switch to Obama.
"Honestly, there aren't that many differences between Clinton and Obama," she said, but noted the "huge" differences between Obama and McCain.
Despite student involvement, Martin says there's always more work to be done at the campaign office. Her boss, she added, is still trying to find volunteers to fill the days she isn't there.
Silverman spends much of her time on campus getting more students to take the step from registering to volunteering - part of what she considers an essential "grassroots" network of activism.
Students say their work for the campaign is met with mixed reactions.
As Silverman goes door-to-door on Saturdays, she said people's responses can be "very mixed," with voters either very receptive or very guarded about their presidential choice.
At Penn, "we sometimes get on people's nerves," Ross said. "It really depends on the person."
But when they do find a student not registered to vote, and that person registers, "it feels really great," Ross said, "no matter how many times you're rejected by other people."
But Ross does get frustrated by those apathetic to the process, saying they are "letting go of a great opportunity" to do something about the problems they see in the country.
This year represents the first time most current student volunteers have been involved in a political campaign on a significant level.
And because students "are not in the real world doing jobs that take up our entire days," Silverman said, "this is the time we have to go out and volunteer."
