Local groups encouraging involvement in local races - KXXV-TV News Channel 25 - Central Texas News and Weather for Waco, Temple, Killeen |

This Friday is the last day to file to be on the ballot for May's local general election.

Across Central Texas, there are races ranging from city to municipal to school board. In McLennan County, several of the races are currently uncontested and local advocates are looking to change that.

While the election is nonpartisan, McLennan County Democratic Chair Mary Duty sees an opportunity to get people more involved. "Change isn't going to happen overnight or a few weeks. We have to pace ourselves for where we want to go as a state and as a nation and we have to start in our local communities," Duty said. 

Duty said many people may be intimidated to run for office. "We don't jump out there and say 'let's all run'. We don't get involved in that. We train people that want to run; we have Project Lift."

Project Lift gives training and insight into what it takes to run for office. The goal is to get more people fighting for positive changes. It's part of the reason LucyAnn Sanchez filed to run for Beverly Hills City Council. 

"There's things that need to be changed in Beverly Hills to accommodate," Sanchez said, and those changes start with her. "That all starts in your neighborhood and that's where communities are built: the people that are out there asking questions, making phone calls, and trying to represent their community and bring to light situations that are easy to discuss."

5 p.m. on Friday, February 13th is the deadline to file. 

Copyright 2017 KXXV. All rights reserved.