The Trans Canada Trail is a 29,000 km trail system that crosses every province and territory, connects 15,000 communities, and reaches all three of Canada’s coastlines. It is the longest multi-use trail in the world. TCT is the organization that advocates for, stewards and champions Canadian trails, providing leadership and guidance, funding and resources, outreach and engagement to local trail groups, municipalities, and trail users.

In my role, I support trail partners with three key directives: infrastructure & major repair trail projects, trailhead and interpretive signage, and treeplanting through the Planting for Tomorrow Program, which is planting 350,000 trees across Canada by 2031.

Curbside Cycle is a city-focused bicycle shop that encourages everyone to choose cycling as their primary mode of transportation. Their wide selection of city, European, cargo, folding, and e-bikes makes cycling an affordable and appealing option for families, businesses, and individuals who want to build a more sustainable future together.

As Creative Coordinator for the shop, I researched and copywrote new product pages for the Shopify website, selected and edited photos to follow brand guidelines, copyedited external communications, and produced accessible content for the shop's blog. I also write, direct, produce, host, and closed-caption videos for the shop's YouTube channel.

Basecamp Climbing is a rock climbing gym in central Toronto that caters to families, new and experienced climbers. The gym prides itself on its safety record, inclusive and diverse community, and its commitment to supporting anyone who wants to enter the sport of rock climbing.

I worked as a Front Desk Staff to welcome climbers to the gym, ensure safety waivers were signed before members entered the facility, and handled administration and financial transactions. I also worked as a Floor Supervisor: patrolling the climbing areas, ensuring safety protocols were followed by all members while maintaining a positive experience, enacting emergency wall rescues when required, and being first point-of-call for first aid emergencies.

Alvéole strives to help people fall in love with bees, build ecological awareness and more sustainable cities and food systems. They create a strong sense of connection to nature in cities by bringing beehives to city rooftops and urban gardens all across Canada, the US, and Europe.

I worked in a team of 4 to extract and jar thousands of pounds of honey produced on Toronto rooftops during the 2018 season. We coordinated our team's production speed to spin honey from the combs, ready the jars, individually label the jars with custom stickers for clients, and kept honey grades and origins separate from one another to ensure each client received only the honey their beehives had produced. We managed machine malfunctions, timing constraints, deadlines and personnel job reassignments to meet production goals on time.

The Iona Community is a dispersed ecumenical community working for peace and social justice, the rebuilding of community and inclusivity. The Abbey and MacLeod Centres on the isle of Iona are centres of welcome and hospitality that host approximately 20 staff, 60 volunteers, and over 2,000 guests each year.

I supported 67 volunteers before and during their time on Iona, ensuring all paperwork was in order pre-arrival and providing ongoing empowerment for interpersonal and work-related issues that arose. I assisted paid staff with volunteer concerns, coordinating holiday time and personal support. I took pride in organizing extracurricular events for volunteers and staff to build relationships outside of work and ensure social cohesion.

The Homegrown National Park Project is creating the world’s first citizen-led urban green corridor. This David Suzuki Foundation project stretches traditional notions of urban green space to include private, public and institutional spaces and encourages residents to bring nature to places that can be quickly and inexpensively transformed — their yards, balconies, rooftops, streets and alleys. It’s led by local residents, empowered by an innovative distributed leadership model.

I co-organized six events throughout the season for a total of 5,000 people, including an annual neighbourhood event for over 2,000 attendees that involved food vendors and partner restaurants from across Toronto, musicians, and community partner groups. I ran logistics for obtaining all necessary permits from the City of Toronto and ensured all necessary people, equipment, and supplies were in place to run the events.

The Otesha Project UK is building a community of people who see their lives as powerful tools for environmental and social change. They connect day to day choices with global impacts, inspiring people to take positive and creative action for a fairer and greener world. Through training and support they empower young people from all backgrounds to take the lead in creating this change for themselves, their community and the wider world.

As Cycle Tour Liaison, I assisted with the planning and execution of a 500km cycling tour with 10 tour members across the length and width of Wales. We visited schools and community centres en route to deliver theatrical plays and workshops on sustainable living and communal activism. We lived our values by cycling the entire way, choosing a vegan diet for the tour, only buying food from local organic merchants, and making all decisions through consensus.

The uWaterloo Student Success Office helps students achieve success by fostering a fulfilling university experience through personal empowerment and individual support.

As Social Media Intern, I worked with the Outreach & Engagement team to inform students of our services, events, and ongoing initiatives throughout campus using social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the University of Waterloo website. I gained and improved upon my skills in videography, photography, writing for different audiences using various web platforms and learning the basics of Drupal and Adobe Illutrator.

The Forest Communities Program (FCP) assists community-based partnerships to develop and share knowledge, strategies and tools to adjust to forest sector transition and to take advantage of emerging forest-based opportunities. The FCP community partnerships are located in defined geographic areas at a regional scale and include a mix of urban, rural and Indigenous communities.

I worked with my supervisor to support the work of the 11 regional sites which helped their communities with a vast array of projects ranging from wildlife management, agroforestry, value-added forest products and land management decisions. This included professional writing, coordinating with various directors to facilitate local action in their forest communities, utilizing my French language skills, and working with diverse teams to share knowledge and resources between areas of governance.

Renison University College offers 220 residence spaces to first and upper year students, providing a safe, welcoming, and tight-knit community for students at the University of Waterloo.

I supported new students living in residence as they navigated their first academic year of university. I organized floor events to build community among my residents, and communicated and worked alongside other dons and the Director of Residence to ensure safety, security, and wellbeing for all residents in the College. I used my skills in crisis management, first aid protocol, conflict resolution, mediation, communication, and event planning, among many others.

Katimavik offers learning through volunteer service programs for young Canadians looking for a unique experience that enables them to make positive change in their lives and in communities. The six-month program focuses on the development of lifelong personal, professional and social competencies in the areas of civic engagement, autonomous living, healthy lifestyle and environmental stewardship.

I volunteered full-time with non-profit organizations while living with 10 other volunteers from across Canada. During the day, I volunteered with a 70-student rural elementary school, ATD Quart Monde (an organization that focuses on personal empowerment for people living in poverty), and Santropol Roulant (an intergenerational community food hub that brings people together through food and community to break social isolation and build relationships). During our evenings and weekends we volunteered at community events and participated in skill-building activities to improve ourselves and our communities. Our Katimavik group organized a food drive involving 500 households in Montreal.

Forest Valley OEC provides safe, active and enriching learning experiences by immersing students and staff in natural and urban environments and enables participants to practice personal responsibility and develop respect for themselves, for others and for their world.

I co-taught classes of students between JK - Grade 12 alongside outdoor educators. We ran programming that was selected by teachers and worked with students to ensure their visit to the Centre was a success. I assisted with set-up and teardown, taught sections of the programming, and worked with another intern to ensure the on-site Maple Syrup program ran smoothly.

Northern Tier High Adventure provides Scouts with the opportunity to embark on weeklong canoe trips through Quetico Provincial Park and the surrounding lake country.

I led groups of Scouts aged 11-18 and their adult troop leaders on canoe and kayak trips that lasted anywhere between 4 and 9 days. I was responsible for packing food, checking and preparing gear pre-trip, assisting the group with picking a route, hand-modifying military maps to include campsites and portage trails, and teaching the Scouts how to be responsible for ensuring their trip ran successfully while acting as a mentor along the way.

The Ontario Ranger program introduces 17-year-old youths to work in the natural resources sector through an overnight work camp experience that spans two months.

In Quetico Provincial Park on the northwest shore of Lake Superior, I performed park maintenance and heritage education by taking part in interpretive activities, as well as learning skills such as trail-brushing, canoe tripping, road upkeep, and campsite maintenance. Each Ranger in the summer of 2008 participated in two weeklong Park-interior canoe trips to complete backcountry campsite maintenance and cleanup.