I am consistently impressed by stories. I think part of truly knowing someone is by listening of their story. Part of this interest and connection to stories is what drew me towards interning with the United States Department of Agriculture, specifically the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington (NRCS-WA). This is a long-lettered acronym for an obscure government agency that does the extremely important work encapsulated by their motto: “helping people help the land.” In effect, this is the main way the US government addresses climate change; through helping farmers, forestland owners, and Native American Tribes do conservation work on their land.

This work, however, is always tied to stories. It was my job as a Public Affairs Intern to help capture, produce, and share these stories. This looked like taking photos and writing a story about Reforest Spokane Day 2024, an event where 200 volunteers planted over 1000 trees at an NRCS Easement site south of Spokane. It also looked like making postcards in Adobe InDesign, to mail to thousands of potential clients all around the state.

My favorite part though was hearing the stories of agricultural producers (i.e. farmers ranchers, and other private landowners) across the state, and their involvement in doing conservation work with NRCS. Take Alan, for instance. He’s a cattle rancher in central Washington and his land has been the site of a cattle operation since 1883. His goal for the land is that it can continue to support cattle well beyond 2083. Our team had the pleasure of going out to his ranch and seeing how NRCS helped his ranch to do more work for the earth. Whether that is paying for wildlife friendly fencing to be installed after devastating wildfires or protecting habitat for the greater sage-grouse on his property. Alan’s love for protecting the land was clear and getting to help share that story was very special.

I do not think I could have done this without the interdisciplinary training I received through my time at Whitworth, but most specifically within the George Whitworth Honors Program.   Much of this role was adapting quickly to new situations and working hard to understand things that were far out of my wheelhouse. I learned about ecological science, and then how to apply theories of communication to create products. These tasks are a little bit different than my areas of study: Political Science and Theology. I am extremely grateful for the experiences I gained in through the creation of my honors project. My project was a panel with activist community organizers here in Spokane, and the skills I gained from that process including, event planning, marketing, facilitating dialogue were extremely pertinent to my time working for the federal government.

The amazing opportunity to work with NRCS allowed me to learn how to listen to stories better, how to tell stories better, and how to live out my story better. Even though I might not pursue public affairs as a full-time career, this crucial part of my Whitworth experience in having an internship really did wonders in seeing an applied aspect of my major. I know that because of this experience, my story will not be the same.