Students in the nation’s capital will be marching along Pennsylvania Avenue on Saturday in protest for stricter gun laws in the United States. And their peers in Long Beach will be doing the same in Bixby Park, headed west toward downtown.

The event is called March for Our Lives and it’s quickly grown from being a single scheduled march at the nation’s capital to more than 817 scheduled marches around the world. Two high school students made sure that Long Beachers also would have a place to march.

“This is a movement for millions of people across the country,” Sterling Raiklen, a senior at Millikan High School and March for Our Lives Long Beach organizer, said. “This will hopefully be a catalyst for political activism and the end of political apathy in our country.”

Raiklen added that it’s important for youth to be as involved as they can be in politics, and if change is going to happen, it’s necessary to be involved now.

“We think that not only should we look at gun laws, but that students should have a stronger voice and create more dialogue,” he said.

Long Beach saw students follow through on their quest for change last week during the nationwide scheduled walkouts. The walkouts were inspired by a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida, that claimed 17 lives.

Raiklen said that he started organizing the march with Trevor Schnack, a junior at the California Academy of Mathematics and Science. The pair connected on Facebook after Schnack wrote a post suggesting that high school students in Long Beach participate in the March for Our Lives movement. Raiklen reached out in agreement.

From there, Raiklen said that they contacted the mayor’s office to figure out the details. To their surprise, the process was easy.

“(Mayor Robert Garcia) is extremely supportive of us,” Raiklen said. “His staff has been really helpful in providing us a space to speak in Bixby Park and coordinating law enforcement efforts.”

The march begins at 10 a.m. Saturday in Bixby Park, at Ocean Boulevard and Junipero Avenue. That’s where the mayor will address attendees. So far, more than 3,000 people have said they will come.

The march will conclude near Harvey Milk Park downtown, with an option to march back to Bixby Park as a group. Chis Steinhauser, LBUSD superintendent, and Megan Kerr, school board president, are expected to be in attendance as well.

“It’s really about having a voice and being consistent with it,” Raiklen said. “We hope that this is just the beginning of something bigger.”