By Lauren Murphy,
Intern in 2013 and again in 2014
AmeriCorps Stewardship Coordinator September 2015 - July 2016
30 for Thirty #1

Fish and fishing has always been a big part of my life. Some of my best memories are fishing for salmon with my dad and over the years, I noticed how salmon populations were changing. That piqued my interest in sustainability, which brought me to study at WWU and then led me to NSEA.

Working at NSEA was my first real job, so I learned a lot about working in general. The training aspect of AmeriCorps was really great for me as it gave me regular feedback and helped me figure out what I needed to work on. I was also able to directly "manage" people (volunteers/interns) for the first time, which gave me a lot of valuable experience. Plus, it was so rewarding to do work that directly helped the environment and allowed me to learn more about what working in the environmental field was like.

I was an AmeriCorps member helping NSEA mostly with River Stewards, outreach and communications, but I wore many hats while there and helped with Students for Salmon, work parties, and more. Before I did AmeriCorps with NSEA, I was a River Steward in 2013 and an Education Intern in 2014.

I will always look back at my time at NSEA fondly largely because of the friendships I made. My fellow AmeriCorps members became close friends that I was able to make so many great memories with. I think our strong teamwork really helped us further NSEA's mission that year.

I'm also grateful I got to experience all sorts of programs, from monitoring to outreach events to environmental education to work parties to presentations. One of my favorite presentations I gave was at a local retirement home (I taught residents about the salmon lifecycle, the five species, conservation, etc.) and on the elevator afterwards, a couple of the residents just were so excited to tell me about how much they loved it! Some of them later came to a work party to help out.