Well hello there!

I’ve been looking at the blog — fabulous! I can’t wait for all the pictures to come up. Goose did a really amazing job with those the video. I love it.

Also, I was hoping you could help me get a job job for this summer. I realized that you know everyone in the world, and they’re all really interesting. (See, I’m “networking.” Special, huh?!) Anyways, I’m trying to find a job (paid) or internship (probably unpaid) doing something that I actually care about. Probably environmental justice work (not walking around with a clipboard and begging people for money, but actually DOING and ORGANIZING stuff) or women’s health work. Preferably not having it centered around kids under the age of, like, 15.

Anyways, I have this letter thing I wrote to a bunch of Quaker friends of ours that I could send to you if you think it would be helpful. It would probably be good for people who don’t really know me — it tells a little about my classes and majors and what I’ve done in the past, etc. Okay, I’ll just copy and paste it below.

I’ll give you all a call later today, but my roommate’s fast asleep still. I woke up at 8:45 and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I figured I might as well take care of all this emailing stuff.

Jobless,

Hilary

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Dear all,

Hi everyone! I’m writing to you because I am, naturally, trying to figure out what I’m doing with myself this summer. I would love to have a job or an internship that I find meaningful, important, and interesting, which is really difficult to find!

I’m a sophomore at Oberlin College (in case you had forgotten or never knew), and I recently declared my major as Latin American Studies. I’m not limiting myself, however, to work only within that field. I’ll probably declare an Environmental Studies major or minor by the end of the semester as well. In the environmental field, environmental justice (looking at who receives the benefits versus who receives the burdens of environmental “progress” and degradation) is particularly interesting to me. Additionally, women’s health and access to services is something that I’d love to become more involved in.

Some classes that I’ve particularly loved include Global Environmental History of the 20th Century, Social Psychology, Latina/os in Comparative Perspective, Latina/o Cultural Activism, and Human Rights and Human Wrongs. Over my winter break, which is 4 weeks longer than most, I interned at an organization in San Francisco called About-Face, which combats negative images of women in the media, teaches media literacy workshops in schools, and is starting a new 12-week long activism workshop that ten young women will be a part of this summer (yay!). During high school I went to Nicaragua twice, for a month each time, volunteering the first time in a school translating letters, and the second time teaching photography in a library for kids ages 8-16, which means that I speak Spanish decently well. I’ve been staffing at Friends General Conference since I was a junior in high school, although it isn’t my aim to be working with kids this particular summer. In addition to other volunteering and activism work, I’m also extremely committed Ultimate Frisbee. It’s fabulous.

I was writing to all of you in hopes that you might be able to make suggestions about organizations that you know do good work, people who might be helpful for me to get in touch with, etc. I’ve done a lot of volunteering and organizing, but I’m finding it difficult to get into the more “professional” world of non-profits and activism work than I had suspected. I’m hoping to be in the New England area this summer, preferably in a “city,” although even that’s debatable. Portland (Maine) and the Boston/Cambridge-area are of the most interest to me, since I might also be looking to take classes at a college or university. Chicago is also a definite possibility and very appealing. I’m hoping to not be living at home (even though I love my parents dearly), mostly because a change in scenery is long overdue. I suppose that means it would be good for me to be able to find someplace that would be able to pay me, but that’s negotiable since I might be able to get a grant from the college for living expenses.

Thanks so much for all your support over the years, even if we haven’t spoken recently. Feel free to forward my letter along to people you think I forgot or people you think might be interested in having me work with them this summer.

Much love, and take care,

Hilary