My Speech from the University YMCA Auction

Hi Folks,

So I think I’m here today because I’ve had the opportunity to grow a career that lets me donate to the Y often (and relatively early in my career) so I’m on the minds of the staff on a fairly regular basis. Some might point to my engineering degree for the ability to give, but in a lot of ways I think the Y is responsible, and I’m pretty vocal about how important the Y was to my career and my life.

I can’t talk about the Y and my experiences here without going back to the beginning. I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky and knew I wanted to go in to Engineering, eventually deciding on the University of Illinois – partially because there was no where else to go in the state if I wanted out of my hometown, and partially because I really liked the General Engineering program (and I might have thought it was Engineering Undecided at first, but it still sounded like a good fit). It was a nice 5 hour drive from home – close enough that I could go home for the weekend, but not so close people could just pop in without warning me first.

I found Alternative Spring Break on Quad day my freshman year – you all could not have gotten my attention earlier if you’d tried, as Alternative Orientation wasn’t a thing when I started. I proceeded to go on a trip to Gallup, New Mexico for Spring Break with 7 other students and was immediately hooked. On that trip, I was introduced to Teach for America and spent the next 3 years convinced that that was what I was going to do post college.  The following fall I Site Facilitated a trip to Goshen, Indiana.

I applied for ASB board the following semester while I was studying abroad, and landed in the Trip Fundraiser Role. After that, I served as Site Facilitator Trainer and spent my senior year bouncing sometimes serious and sometimes ridiculous ideas off of one another with two fantastic people. Beyond that I served on the board of Governors for a year and got to know a lot of the lovely people in the room through a variety of meetings and events.  All told I went on 7 trips, held two ASB Board Positions, one Board of Governors position, and helped coordinate a national trip for the Campus Coalition of YMCAS. When I’d tell people that my major was General Engineering, my friends would laugh and say “but realistically, her major is ASB”.

When it comes down to it, my involvement at the Y prepared me more for holding a job in the real world than the majority of my engineering classes did. In job interviews, my involvement with ASB was one of the first things interviewers would spend time talking about  - it was the thing that made me stand out from other reasonably good but by no means perfect students – I learned early on I’d rather spend two hours thinking about encouraging dialogue around diversity on volunteer trips than thinking about voltage and digital signal processing and was willing to take grade hits for it. But think about the skills I walked away with by focusing on my Y involvement rather than agonizing over specific homework problems.  Organized service trips for over 300 students with a team of 15 other people? Supervised and tracked 15 different groups simultaneously trying to raise money on a deadline? Trained 60 different student leaders how to lead a volunteer trip and shape the experience of their participants? Learning when to step in when those leaders were falling short? Participated in a Capital Campaign Project? Worked remotely to plan a volunteer trip for multiple schools and 50 students? Seriously, who walks into a job interview at 21 or 22 years old with that kind of experience except a Y Student leader? The Y gave me such a head start on a wide range of skills many corporate employees don’t get until much later in their careers.

Despite being convinced for 4 years that I was going to participate in Teach for America – something changed my senior year and I decided to stay at Illinois a 5^th year. After an internship at Accenture, I decided to work there full time – I’d found work that I enjoyed with a community of people that were generally awesome. And, honestly, it felt a little like selling out at the time. But now, four years later – I can say it was a pretty solid decision. I organized a few trips during my tenure for coworkers to go down to Nashville to build wheelchair ramps, and was recognized in annual reviews for that commitment – it was very cool to be in an environment that not only would coworkers be interested in a volunteer trip on their vacation time, but that there would be positive performance evaluation associated with it. I’m much more comfortable with my decision to “sell out” now than I was at graduation. I walked away from Accenture with the ability to donate to causes I care about and a whole arsenal of skills I wouldn’t have picked up somewhere else. More than that, I made networking connections that got me in my current job at Ounce of Prevention Fund – my boss is a former Accenture Tech Labs guy.

The Ounce, by the way, is a non-profit dedicated to Early Childhood Education and does a wide range of program delivery, research, advocacy, and policy activities at the state and federal level. I tell my boss frequently that a job in Early Childhood Education would never have shown up in my job search, as my real passion is encouraging diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, but I can’t imagine a better career fit for me at this moment where I both bring skills to the table and grow my own capabilities for whatever may be next.

In my interview with the COO at the Ounce (my bosses’ boss) – she asked why I was interested in taking a job with the Ounce, and if I’d ever worked with a non-profit before. The fact that I still have a lot of my involvement with ASB and the Y on my resume and had continued service initiative throughout my time at Accenture resonated with her – I had a clear demonstration that aside from being a solid skills fit for the position, my heart was in it, the non profit world wasn’t completely foreign, and that I was going to be committed to the cause.

I’m here today, because I feel like the Y continues to give to me personally and professionally. Mike Stephens recently nominated me for the Break Away Board of Directors and I spent last weekend at my first in person Board meeting. It was immediately like walking into a room full of long lost family members, and I wouldn’t have been in that room had it not been for my connections and experience with ASB, the Y, and Campus Coalition of YMCAs. It was a nice reminder of being part of a movement, and that I’m much happier in general when I’m busy and part of something that is bigger than myself – something I think is very true of my experience with the Y.

When it comes down to it, my time at the Y involved a lot of education, both professionally and personally. I learned etiquette rules, like how to politely deal with olive pits at a Y event (thanks to Gloria).  I remember as a student on the board for multiple years, feeling frustration at the same conversations and debates happening year after year. But at the core, it doesn’t hurt the board to debate the same issues repeatedly, because those discussions are a big part of personal development, learning how groups work together and what your own leadership style is in a group.

Beyond just education, I wouldn’t have many of the relationships I have today without the Y. Aside from dragging my friends that I met outside of the Y on ASB trips, I met many of my current best friends through ASB and the Y. Seriously, most of the people I routinely hang out with in Chicago are Y Alum.  I won’t go in to my dating history, but I will let you all know that a substantial number of the guys I’ve dated have had some sort of Y affiliation. I think the Break Away meeting last weekend and that sense of homecoming even though I was walking in to a room full of strangers rings true of my Y experience and why I continue to stay involved – the people that find themselves at the Y are some of the most passionate, interesting, and motivated people that you can find, anywhere.

The Y takes students that have this amazing trait – we tried to pin it down last weekend, and the closest we got was “spirited idealism” – that trait that people leave a room or a building cleaner than they found it, that they feel they are not doing enough unless they’re giving 110%, and that they have endless amounts of fun even when doing something mundane.  The Y provides a home for these students to come together and grow as people and as leaders, giving them both a physical venue and a mental home. I’m so lucky I found the Y on my first day on campus – I can’t imagine all the opportunities, friendships, and experiences I would have missed out on had I not stopped at that booth.

Thank you and good luck with the bidding.