Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign opened an office in Raleigh Saturday, and staffers and volunteers are preparing for the May 6 primary elections.

Ryan Mills, a full-time volunteer and graduate student in business administration, said that since the office opened, there have been a fair number of people coming to the office and asking how they can get involved.

“It’s a great place where people can come and learn about senator Obama and his policies and also where they can figure out ways to become involved with his campaign,” Mills said. “There is a good amount of energy for Obama around the area.”

The biggest focus at the Obama headquarters is getting as many people registered to vote as possible before the April 11 deadline, according to Zach Calloway, a senior at Cardinal Gibbons High who volunteers daily.

“Since the deadline for voter registration is Friday, we’re really trying to pump that up right now through voter registration drives on college campuses as well as high schools,” Calloway said. “After that deadline, we’ll start doing more door-to-door campaigning as well as the ‘get out the vote’ and ‘voter march’ programs.”

Calloway said he decided to get involved after participating in the South Carolina campaigns and seeing how excited everyone got during door-to-door campaigning upon hearing that he was with the Obama campaign.

“It feels like such a unique movement to be a part of,” Calloway said. “I feel like I am making a big difference and that I’m part of a team that is making an incredible difference.”

Many volunteers begin just by walking into the Obama office, according to Calloway.

“I’m just a real strong believer in Obama’s message that the problems that we’re facing in the world today requires our country to get past more of our petty battles to come together and be able to face challenges,” Mills said.

Derek Gatlin, junior in sociology and vice president of the College Democrats, said there have been efforts between the Obama campaign, Students for Barack Obama as well as College Democrats. Now that the Obama headquarters has opened up, he expects to see even more involvement from students.

“As a political organization, we have to be careful about emphasizing one candidate over another during the primary elections,” Gatlin said. “We try very hard to push people to get involved in whichever campaign they want to as long as they take an active role.”

Gatlin said as a full time student with a job, he does not have much time to give, but he plans on getting involved as much as he can.

“As Michelle Obama said last night, all it takes is a few phone calls to friends or knocking on a few doors and those are two of the main ways I’d like to get involved,” Gatlin said. “If everyone took that kind of approach, then we would have a pretty healthy democracy.”