I was able to get a lot of good advice from the Keep America Beautiful conference, both about real life (college/school advice) and with continuing a career in environmental conservation. I was able to see successful people in career positions I didn’t know existed that I could include on my own list of "what should I be when I grow up." I’m also invited to speak at the nature themed school orchestra concert in late May, which I never would have been offered without building connections within my school to promote my education/clean up events.

The education event training helped me because it really showed what to do with age demographics. With my educational lessons I planned on going to the audience of 2nd-3rd graders but realized I needed to go higher in age and settled with the 5th grade students.

The meeting about career networking was my favorite meeting to attend. Every speaker really brought their best forward and created a good space for questions. This is a meeting where I realized the importance of connections. I have heard people say small friends in big places and I now fully grasp that saying. In my opinion, it will take a lot of small friends to reach an environmental eutopia, but we will get there. As long as we keep moving so will the wind powered turbines!

Doing this program help me grow as a person and enable me the tools and understanding I needed to continue into my adulthood. Also, the events and projects we had to do assisted me in my personal service hours for my high school for graduation. After my educational event, many kids from my community have come up to me and said they remember me. I take that as a sign the I did my job well.

When ever I feel lost, I put my trust in nature as it guides us to find our purpose. With my year as KPB Ambassador, I felt one step closer to understanding myself and my relationship with everything around me. If anything, I want to continue to fight for the environment as it has always provided me with a safe space.

I was really inspired by all the different types of speakers and the variety in their careers. They gave a lot of perspective on how there are a plethora of different ways to bring conservation efforts into our lives and eventually our careers!

Using the knowledge from the Young Ambassador Program enabled me to better develop targeted and effective strategies to address specific problems and promote sustainable practices in my area.

My favorite session was the meeting with Keep Texas Beautiful, because I felt very proud to represent Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful, but I also felt that I was a part of a community of students with diverse beliefs and backgrounds that all have a great desire to improve and beautify their community and environment.

I also learned what it is like to become a leader. Being able to allow my community to learn more about our environment really opened my eyes on the fact that there is so much more that I can do.

I have organized cleanups in the past and have seen the gut-wrenching build–up of trash before, but this time was different because I felt that I had a larger purpose being part of the KPB YA program. While this stressed me out a bit and also filled me with fear of failure, I felt agency and pride with my work.

The clean up event taught me a lot. When brainstorming with my friends how and where we specifically wanted to do our clean up event, I realized how much our region had been affected by littering. From parks to neighborhoods, all of us had an idea for a place that could use some help. This showed me that every clean up, from one piece to a million, is crucial. After the event, I personally felt more motivated to change my own lifestyle to positively affect my environment’s condition. Seeing the amount of trash demonstrated to me how much of an affect people have. Even if we do not venture into nature ourselves, the plastic bottles we toss out, snack wrappers we tear off, and fast food bags we want to get rid of do.