3 = 1

3 Ends = 1 New Beginning

A lot has happened in the last three months and easily sums up my year


Ending #1:
Three months ago I ended my job with Green Hammer. If you've read my previous posts or know me, you might find this as a major surprise. But it's not tragic. After being there for a year and in the position of a part-time office and project coordinator, I was starting to feel a bit lost, unmotivated, not living up to my potential and most importantly I had trouble envisioning a growth path within the company. For a couple of reasons, neither of which reflect poorly on the team there or myself. First, they are a small business, they don't have the resources of a large business to offer me the experience I was after. Second, I felt like my role was developing into a receptionist/secretary with little structure or a path to higher ground. I was finding myself feeling unappreciated, not valued enough, unhappy. (In GH's defense, this was last winter when business was so low, there was not a lot going on for me to do and if I would have stuck it out long enough, I may have been able to accomplish my personal career goals - but I didn't) I quit. But with there support as you'll soon find out.


Ending #2:
Last week I was invited to the Habitat for Humanity dedication ceremony for the new Women Build house. I wasn't going to miss it. Even though I've slowly fallen off the page with the group I spent a good portion of last fall on the donation-in-kindness committee and was able to secure donations for all of the flooring in the house. Wood floors for the downstairs and Green Label Plus carpeting for the upstairs. I really wanted to see how it turned out or even if the companies actually followed through. I spent a lot of time that fall educating the other committee members about green products and how we could increase the health and comfort of the home by searching for sustainable options (this was a semi-novel idea for HfH because they weren't committed to making every home sustainable at that point, indicating that donaters wouldn't be willing to donate higher quality products) To my surprise when I showed up for the dedication, the house had been Earth Advantage Certified! All in all, it was pretty neat to see the final product look so good even though I had a minor role this year. I have a lot to owe HfH, actually I know I wouldn't be where I'm at now without the yearlong experience of building a house two years ago that I shyly endeavored.


Ending #3:
Yesterday was my last day working with the Sustainable Food Coordinator at OHSU. Eecole has been the most valuable mentor through my little career journey. Not only is she a remarkable role model but she has become one of my most supportive and biggest fans. We accomplished a lot in the last two years! And I very proud and honored to have been involved in such a major transformation in waste reduction at the largest university/hospital in oregon. I will miss my time in the office with Eecole, Justin and Riikka.



=


1 New Beginning:
All of these endings have led me to where I'm now. And I'm very happy to tell you that I was offered a job, out of the blue, to work in the Design + Construction Department at OHSU! I've been there for the last three months, slowly transitioning out of the Food and Nutrition department. And so far I love it, I can't believe how lucky I am and can't seem to stop bragging - I just can hardly believe how far I've come since that spring day when I showed up at a lot in North Portland to a foundation that I eventually would build a home on and become a member of the WB committee and become a well known volunteer. And last year when I was so anxious nervous, excited to apply to GH's internship and I thought the interview went terrible because I received no call until 6PM on the day they said they'd get back to me (I had already given up and said oh well). And then the day I went to talk to the Assistant Director of D+C, I sat in my car for minutes, almost deciding not to go in and bailing. Wow, what a relief I overcame my fears and followed my dream so persistently. And as I'm realizing of all that I have accomplished in the last two years, thinking of myself as just a young student not qualified really to lead anything, I am reminded of how much I have grown. As a testimate, I was nominated to be President of the NW Ecobuilding Guild this Spring, I declined and opted for the VP position but really as all of my fellow steering committee members were encouraging me, I am qualified to be President, public speaking skills and all!


More to come about my new job . . .

earth warrior

i've been asking for a lot of advice lately

follow your heart

or

follow the money

i'm not sure either answer comes easy but i have found my self less worried by what i do for a living with the comfort of knowing that whatever i do, i will always be an earth warrior

(yep, i actually used that term to describe myself to our friend nathan when we were talking about the nonsense question, "so, what do you do?" that's really not as important as what you believe in)

anyways, it turns out i'm not so unique in thinking of myself in that light. i received my final copy of YES! magazine last week and this issue is titled: be a climate hero

It takes cashier climate heros and barista climate heros to help solve our global crisis just as much as it takes scientists and politicians. It's the little things that we can do (ask for recycling, buy organic, question authority) that really can create a mass movement. It really takes all industries, service providers and consumers to call for climate action. All of the recent efforts to mitigate climate would not be successful if we didn't have heros in every sector.

I can testify and brag a little bit about this phenomenon. I was a barista at a hospital and noticed the multitude of milk cartons filling the dumpsters every day. It seemed obvious that by recycling these, we would cut down on our trash output so I asked the manager if this was an option. A few months later we had a location to recycle the cartons. Little by little, I convinced my barista coworkers to take a simple extra step of rinsing the things and then recycling them. Now, three years later, I help run the waste reduction effort in the Food & Nutrition department at the hospital and every milk carton is recycled with almost 300 employees. Not only do we recycle milk cartons, we compost about 60% of the waste produced by the kitchen, patient food and our retail cafeteria and recycle just about everything under the sun that is recyclable. Our goal is to compost and recycle 93% of all of the waste produced. I can't for sure say this wouldn't have happened without my inquiry about recycling milk cartons as a barista but I can say, it certainly would not have been as extensive waste reduction success.