I've been volunteering at Groundwork for quite some time now, and I'm about to start a paid position as the Green Team Coordinator, so at this point I have a fair amount of insight into the workings of a not-for-profit organization. Recently, I was asked by one of my Green Team Youth to answer the following questions about my experience working at my nonprofit (It gives me warm, fuzzy feelings when my youth ask me for help with things. Join the Green Team, and I'll look over your college apps for you!) I was proud of my first-ever interview, and so it is reprinted here with permission.

Genevieve Parker: Groundwork San Diego was chartered in 2007 at the request of the City of San Diego to implement the Chollas Creek Enhancement Plan, a 20-year masterplan to restore the degraded, urban Chollas Creek. Today, GWSD is working to improve the watershed physically through community engagement—especially service learning programming for youth. At our events, community members and volunteers pick up trash on public land, remove nonnative, invasive plant species, plant native seedlings, and install large and small public amentities. Our goal is to bring Southeastern communities a sense of investment, ownership and pride toward their creek.

GP: The Chollas Creek Watershed (which is part of the Pueblo Watershed) has received far less interest and fewer resources in the past than, for instance, the next watershed to the north: the San Diego River. Chollas Creek runs through economically distressed communities who suffer from high unemployment rates, high school-dropout rates, high urban crime rates, and the lowest household incomes in the City. Therefore, the people we serve come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and don’t generally have time to focus on improving their community, when they could be working. The Chollas Creek Watershed is the most densely populated hydrologic unit (HU) in San Diego County, while the landscape is predominantly urban, and deficient in parkland and tree cover. In addition, the watershed traverses four city council districts, making it difficult to initiate consistent improvements and developments across the watershed.

GP: I came across Groundwork by chance in between years at university when I was home for the summer and, like many of my contemporaries, finding it harder than ever to land interviews, let alone a job. My mom suggested I look for volunteer work, and through a family friend who is on Groundwork’s Board of Directors, I found and started a summer internship. Having found a place where I could make a positive impact on the environment and people in my hometown, I soon became so passionate that I returned the following summer.

GP: Absolutely. When I was in school I had trouble envisioning where my life could possibly be headed. I had friends working in retail or the service industry, and that seemed like a drag; but I’m not particularly business-minded or entrepreneurial, either. It turns out service is where it’s at for me—just not in the industry. Discovering a professional line that I actually felt zealous toward was groundbreaking for me. I love my work at Groundwork because I get to use my creativity and my skills at writing and communication for the good of people who need advocacy, and not for the profit of some mega-corporation that could do with or without me. I have also really seen myself develop here, as well. In 2010, when I came on as an administrative and grantwriting support intern, I never imagined that I’d eventually be running and developing the high school Green Team, but that’s exactly what I’ll be doing in 2012.

GP: I touched on this briefly in the last question; I feel one of the benefits of working for a nonprofit is that I retain my identity and value as an individual; I’m not just my job title. It’s very existential! I also feel like the goals, as well as the value, of my work is more tangible than that of, say, a sugary drink company. The company’s goal is to sell as much product as possible. All they have to do is make a profit, and they’re “in the black,” and that equals success. What does that really mean? Has anything changed as a result of their investments besides kids getting fatter? I’m not out to vilify for-profit corporations, but to illustrate the difference between working for monetary profit as opposed to not-for-profit work. Our success is measured in terms like “acres of openspace/parkland improved,” “tons of CO2 sequestered” or “# civic activities/forums Team participated in.” Dollars come second, and they’re a means, not an end.

GP: Can I get philosophical? One thing I’ve often heard from mature folks talking to young folks can be paraphrased: “you’re so idealistic now, but when you get older, you’ll see how the world works.” Well, I am older now, and I not only understand better how the world works, but also why it became so. Wars, inequalities, and injustices plague us (and if not us personally, then our human brothers and sisters), but I’m still idealistic. If I could mount a challenge to my generation and those a few years younger than I, it’d be to understand, to question, and to change for the better the workings of the world we were born into. I want my generation to realize that “just the way things are” is a fallacy; it’s a condition dependent on nothing changing, which has incidentally never happened.