Hi, I'm Hallie Leonard, the office manager for Clean Water Action's Providence office!
Much of my work is administrative, making sure our office runs nice and smooth all year long. However, as Spring time rolled around, I began a career fair marathon to recruit our next great canvassers. I learned an incredible amount.
My first career fair was a bit intimidating. Having no idea what to expect, I put on my professional pants (literally), and headed to Brown University. Brown was followed by Johnson and Wales, followed by UMass Dartmouth, and many others.
'Nadia,' the environmental pioneer who has been working on a plastic water-bottle ban at her university was followed by 'Brian,' who spent all of the month of March working odd jobs and hours so that he could spend most of his time canvassing for the presidential candidate of his choice was followed by 'Anne,' who grew up in rural Nigeria and didn't have access to clean water so she has dedicated her time to the idea that clean and accessible drinking water is a basic human right.
Impressive student after impressive student walked up to the Clean Water Action table at these career fairs to let me know that they care about the environment and public health and are eager to make a difference.
As I left these career fairs, I had an overwhelming sense of hope for the future of humanity. A hope that the Earth, as we know it, might be okay after all because as you are reading this, countless college students are choosing to become informed so that they can make a difference.
I think of these wonderful interactions as a perk to my job. Of course, I encouraged these students to begin their environmental careers at Clean Water Action during the Summer of 2016. I'm excited to see what the future holds. If you'd like to learn more or apply for a job, please visit our canvass page or contact me at hleonard@cleanwater.org or 401-331-6972.
