Updates from the New Year

Hello friends!

It's certainly been awhile, and boy does it feel good to be back. I took off time for finals and the holidays, and it was just the relaxation I needed (that is, after finals). I hope you had the merriest of winter holidays, and welcome to the new year!

There are a few things I'm very, very excited to tell you:


1) I will be spending my senior year of high school in Italy.

Here are some exclamation marks to make up for the lack of them in the previous sentence: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited. When I found out that I had made it in, then that I had made it to Italy I jumped, screamed, and skipped for joy (thank goodness I was home alone). I am doing the Rotary Youth Exchange program, and I've already met friends who are inbound (my friend Lisa is teaching me Italian before I go) and outbound (I have friends from the 6110 district who will be in Switzerland, Belgium, and maybe even as near as France who I'll be able to spend time with while abroad!) students alike.

The last weekend of January, all of the Rotary students in the district (including me) will be attending SCRYE in Tulsa. The acronym means nothing to me either, but it's a conference for all the southeastern United States Rotary districts. In reality, though, it's an international conference, because all of the inbound students in the region will be attending. That means they could be from anywhere in the world! It'll be a cultural conversion and one very long dance party. I'm pumped.


2) This summer, I will be one of Fayetteville's Summer of Solutions (SoS) leaders!

Right along next to me in that leadership position is my friend Andrea, who is currently in Chicago or on her way home with the rest of the Fayetteville team. They just spend this past week at a conference called January Gathering, which is second (correct me if I'm wrong here) annual training for program leaders. Fayetteville is one of sixteen other cities in the nation, many of which are organizing their first year as an SoS program! Learn more about Fayetteville's program here.

I first got involved with Summer of Solution last spring when we began planning our summer program. It's incredible to see how much our program (and myself, too!) have progressed in retrospect. At the beginning of our planning process, we knew nothing (or at least I didn't) about the green economy, what it meant to be building it, or what even the word sustainability implied. In all fairness, there are still many things in the Youth Climate Movement that I am 100% ignorant of. Or maybe not entirely, but certainly compared to my peers. Rather than learning the background of solar energy or how photons work, I now feel comfortable with myself and the problems that are teasing us from afar.

Because I am so excited for the next year but don't really know where to go from here, I was so disappointed when I realized that I started school the same week of the Midwest January Gathering in Chicago. I was so passionate about this that I pursued a different idea: attending Northwest Gathering instead. So after many (many) hours of searching for plane tickets, then a few more on the phone after those tickets fell through, I found a ticket flying to Portland this upcoming Thursday afternoon!

I haven't been to the Northwest since I was five or six, and before that since I was a baby. I was born in the San Juan islands, and I wonder how it'll feel to go back to the general area. I've heard wonderful things about Portland, and I'm so excited to meet people from the other programs. I know that it will be such a transformational experience that the hassle to get there will be entirely worth it!

If it weren't for the generosity and understanding of the national team, the patience and flexibility of my wonderful mum, and the kindness and quick problem-solving of the woman on the phone from Expedia, there's no way I could've done it. I ended up buying tickets within seven days of my departure, meaning that the tickets I had originally had my eye on jumped to over $1,000. But thanks to that wonderful, wonderful lady on the phone whose name I never did catch entirely I now have a ticket for a nearly half that price (with donations for travel from previous fundraisers on their way).

Even so, I'll still be spending a good $200 out of pocket. If you are interested in contributing to cover these travel funds, even if you can offer no more than $20, please let me know! Any financial contribution, large or small, helps program leaders from around the nation to be trained, invigorated, and empowered by their peers from other programs. Please consider donating to lessen the load on the individual -- serena.caffrey@gmail.com for more information on how to fund this trip exclusively or http://grandaspirations.org/donate to donate to the national team.

Any suggestions for what I should do in Portland?! Leave your answers in comments!


Thank you again for your time, support, and consideration. I love being back, and I'm excited to show some progress in other areas of my life (art, cooking, and more!). Stay tuned in and hopefully we'll make this more regular.

Enjoy your Saturday and have the loveliest of weeks!

All the best,
Serena

P.S. The kale in my garden is still thriving! We harvest it midday (or sometimes by flashlight when we get lazy) and saute it with garlic in olive oil. Yum!