I will graduate early this December and with that right around the corner, I’m focusing on my goals for what lies ahead.

Odd as it may seem, my childhood dream was to travel in college.  I have achieved this in a variety of exciting ways.  Each year at Augsburg, I have participated in a Spring Break Service Trip.  Every other year we traveled to Mobile, Alabama and New Orleans to do service to better those communities.  In Mobile, we served with Habitat for Humanity building homes.  In New Orleans, we did relief work for Hurricane Katrina with Camp Restore, a local nonprofit organization.  Last summer, I really got to live out my traveling dreams!  I have always had a special place in my heart for France and had an incredible professor offer to let me stay with her and her husband and friends in France for a month.  It was truly an amazing experience that I can hardly put words to but I am forever grateful for the Augsburg Bonner Leaders Program helped me realize that I want to do social justice work.  Through meeting with people I encountered through my work, I’ve discovered that my dream job is to do design and public relations work for nonprofits spreading the good word about the wonderful things they do and services offered.  Nonprofits obviously help underserved populations, which is most important to me, but these organizations are underserved too!  It is my belief that not enough people know about these services or the work being done by nonprofits until they are in need of those services and even then it can be a challenge to find them.  So it is my goal to make this known on a broader scale for many reasons.  Selfishly, this work is rewarding.  It also helps the organizations out a lot when they don’t have resources to have someone raising awareness for them.  It also serves society at large because more people would know about resources that either directly affect their lives or they care about the goals of the organizations and would like to get involved.  So although the road to this discovery was a frustrating one, it feels great to be able to confidently tell people what I want to do with my life.

Another personal goal of mine is to change the cycle of addiction in my family.  It is one issue that I am particularly passionate about because it has influenced my life and who I am so much.  I am so proud that my college offers the StepUP program, a residential recovery program.  Despite not being enrolled in StepUP, it has significantly changed my college experience.  Since I don’t party like the average college student, it was a challenge to enter that environment and maintain my values and beliefs around alcohol especially.  Luckily, I found allies in StepUP who needed that support as much as I did.  I now live with the friends that I made through StepUP and am so glad to still feel part of a strong community while still being the minority in the college lifestyle.

Finally, I want to continue to travel.  Going forward, I want to do service abroad instead of simply travel.  I am currently exploring options like the PeaceCorps and AmeriCorps City Year to carry out this goal. Ultimately, I want to end up in Minneapolis though.  Through my work in the Bonner Program, I have grown to value my roots in the city and have committed me to engaging in the diverse communities this unexpected Midwestern city has to offer.