My Other Signature Story

Every girl has a story about when she realized she wanted to change the world. This is mine.

My Change The World Life Goal began to click on our family vacations. We began to take them when I was in middle school, and they centered on national parks and where my mom’s semi-annual sales meetings were based. Of course the national parks were gorgeous and it only took a few hikes for my sister and I to become slight eco nerds. Soon throwing away water bottles made our stomachs start to churn to the point where, if there were no recycling facilities at our hotel, we would pack the water bottles in our suitcases so we could recycle them when we got home or when we spotted a recycling bin on our travels. No joke. Bless my parents for encouraging and putting up with our shenanigans.

I soon began to realize that even though the amount that I would recycle throughout my lifetime would be notable, it wouldn’t be enough. This realization coincided with the global warming “trend” at the time, so gosh darn it my 16-year-old self decided to do something about it! I applied to the wonderful three semester long Pine Jog Fellowship (South Floridians! Apply for this! You won’t regret it!) and was happy to learn that I was admitted, along with four other Change The World Classmates that I went to school with. The second semester of the fellowship required us to take matters into our own hands, and my partner and I (she is now in the Peace Corps…duh) teamed up with our local Home Depot on a mission to change 500 “regular” light bulbs in our community to energy efficient CFL light bulbs. Did we reach our goal? Why yes we did, and our town now has 1,078 CFL’s installed on our behalf thanks to the support of our city government, our community and the Home Depot on Jog Road.

So, after all of this, the proverbial light bulb went off in my head. Corporate Social Responsibility, with a concentration in sustainability, was the way for me to change the world. I haven’t quite gotten there yet, but there have been many experiences in my personal life and toddler of a career that have helped me satisfy the plastic bottle suitcase packing middle schooler inside of me. And at this point, I couldn’t be happier.