Our Summer Intern Looks Back

Jennifer's Note: We've been blessed with having several great interns and fellows over the summer.  Alison Amyx, from Emory's Candler School of Theology is our Beatitudes Fellow, and she  joined us for the summer. Alejandra Rodriguez joined us from the Spark Program, a non-profit for middle school youth.  Savannah Van Leuvan, joined us from St. Mary's College High School. Savannah wrote the following blog as she ends her summer with us to begin 11th grade next month. Thanks to all of our interns this summer, you've done a great job!

At the beginning of the summer, when my mom told me about California Interfaith Power and Light and the possibility of me doing an internship, I wasn’t quite sure if I wanted to do it but I decided to go ahead and do it, maybe learn a couple things. What I wasn’t aware of at the time was that I would have such a blast working as the summer intern.

 

Everyone that worked in the office was so nice to me and supportive. I’d get distracted and have long conversations with Sally about Obama or with Alison, the national office intern from Georgia, about her new kitten. I always had something to do and, even though some of it was fishing through an online database, I always enjoyed what I was doing. I did so many things, redecorate the office, work a little bit on the youth program, staff meetings, conference calls, help out with starting an East Bay working group. But my favorite, the highlight of my time at CIPL was Lobby Day, when we went to the state capital on June 17^th.

 

The two weeks before Lobby Day, everything went by in a blur. Copy, paste. Copy, paste. Copy, paste. I spent hours listening to Jen make phone calls to legislators, used my spare time to look up what RPS, offsets and net metering are. On the 16^th, all I could think of was printing things out and putting together packets for the Senators and Assembly members, confusing myself on the two Calderons and confusing others on Jerry Hill and Berryhill. I stayed in the office until seven and figured out what I was going to say the next day as the 15 year old young person who wanted the Senators and Assembly members to hear her voice, or, what we said at the office, the ‘secret weapon.’  

 

We woke up early and met at BART at seven in the morning, got in the car and drove off to Sacramento. Once we got to the church where we were meeting all of our team of clergy and faith leaders, Alison and I ran to get the food, cakes and coffee, for everyone. We set it out, organized packets so that people could find their names easily, alphabetically of course, and then we waited. Handshakes, voices, talking, conversations about people’s lives. One person even said to me, “You must be Jen!” I corrected him, telling him that no, I was the fifteen year old intern that worked for Jen, going into my Junior year of high school, and that Jen was the one standing by the coffee. “It was great to meet you!” He said before quickly walking over to Jen.

 

Once we were all seated, folders in hand, extra handout passed out, we listened to people talk about the bills that we were lobbying, then we listened to a run down of the day, and did a practice run of what we were going to say. And then we walked. Hurried feet, rushing to the capitol building. We didn’t want to be late to our first meetings. Sally, Jennifer, Barbara and I went to our first meeting, my first constituent meeting, appearing at the door just in time, before having to wait ten minutes. Once we were in the conference room, talking to one of the staff members, we couldn’t stop talking. We wanted our voices to be heard, and the staff member we were talking to heard them. We wanted change, we were so passionate about the bills that time just seemed to fly by. Everything was going so well, so well that we looked at our clocks and realized we were 5 minutes late for our next meetings. We quickly said goodbye and navigated the halls and elevator systems to get to our next meetings. Mine was with a republican’s staff member who listened to everything we had to say, asked us questions. We were interrupted when the Senator himself, John Benoit, popped in to say hello to us.

 

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Rushing around, lots of talking, meeting people, stuffing business cards in my folder. During lunch we met Assembly member Kevin de Leon who came up to meet us and talk to us briefly before he had to rush off to a meeting. More meetings, more talking, more trying to get people to vote yes on our bills. While I was sitting in Assemblywoman Noreen Evans’ office, talking to one of her staff members, we were surprised to see her pop in and say hi before she, like the other Politicians we had met that day, rushed off to a meeting. While we walked out of her office, we noticed a blown up cartoon that the opposition had tried to use against her. Why anyone would think labeling someone as ‘an environmentalist’ while they ran for a position in the North Bay would hurt their chances at winning is beyond me.

 

More meetings, more talking, a slight mishap in which one of our scheduled visits didn’t have us on their calendar, and then we were done. Alison and I started to head downstairs for our recap when we passed the metal bear by Governor Schwarzenegger office, which she made me stand next to with her to take a picture. ‘You’re such a tourist!’ I laughed while smiling for the camera, secretly enjoying the touristyness of the pictures. The halls were beautiful on the ground floor. Displays on every county in California lined the walls. Once downstairs, Senator Mark Leno came to say hello to us. He beamed at me and exclaimed that it was great to see a young person so involved when I told him I was only fifteen.

 

I didn’t quite realize how tired I truly was until we were walking back to our cars. The walk seemed so much farther then it had when we had walked to the capitol building. We found the church, got in our cars, and headed back to our appropriate points of return. My legs ached, my energy was drained, I was tired, but surprisingly energized from the day’s events. I was excited, happy to be making a difference, to get my voice and opinions out there. To start taking steps to promote a green state, a green country, and a green world for future generations, for those living in poverty, and for God, to protect his creation.

 

My time at CIPL really affected me. I learned so much, about the state government, about green jobs and ways to be ecological, about God and people of faith, and about myself, about my values and what I want to do to make a difference. Working at CIPL gave me the knowledge and experience to do so much in my life, and I really appreciate it. It was an amazing experience.