Leadership
I have taken on positions of leadership in every area of my life since as early as middle school, when I started a glee club and a sticker-trading club (did I mention I was a cool kid?).
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In high school, I learned about Daybreak at OPCC (now the People Concern), a transitional housing program for recently homeless women with mental disabilities. I threw myself whole-heartedly into founding an OPCC service club and worked with the Daybreak volunteer coordinator to brainstorm various outreach efforts, including bake sales, sock drives, Christmas gifts, and monthly meals that our club cooked for the residents.
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In 2012, Daybreak awarded me the Ruth Ellis Service Award for outstanding volunteer work.
An OPCC Club monthly meal (2011)
In college, I became highly involved in BareStage Productions, a campus theatre organization. I held several leadership positions over the course of my time at Berkeley, most notably Director of Internal Affairs, Producer, and Manager of BareTroupe (a subgroup of BareStage). In these roles, I had a host of responsibilities, including goal-setting, team-building, conflict resolution, and the planning and execution of meetings and events.
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Collage I made for a BareStage newsletter in 2017
Since college, I have continued finding and creating leadership opportunities in my life. Two friends and I founded and serve as the owners and managers of a production company called Real Adult Humans that creates comedic video content. Additionally, I have started or taken leadership positions in four clubs that meet on a weekly and monthly basis.
For me, leadership is something that I've always poured my whole heart into.
Instead of filling an existing position, I've fought to forge a new one, or come up with ways to expand the systems in place. I believe that the very role of a leader is to meet the changing needs of the group they oversee.
For example, as a resident counselor at the English Language Center, I noticed the students kept missing their bed check announcements, so I got permission from my supervisor to create a new Facebook group that I singlehandedly maintained, posting announcements with little graphics I made. In BareTroupe, when the group morale seemed down, I invented mandatory one-on-one "coffee chats" with each of the members so everyone had a safer way to give feedback.
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All that said, my favorite part of leadership is the opportunity to create and empower a community. I will never stop looking for chances to be a part of that.
