Green Spotlight: Kersey Marion
With donor support, The Environmental Center accomplishes a lot with a relatively small team of staff, Board of Directors, and several amazing volunteers and interns. And we consider ourselves very lucky that Kersey Marion has committed so much time and energy to make our work possible! Kersey has helped out in several programs and continues to find new ways to lend a hand and stay connected to our work, whether she’s digging in our Learning Garden or organizing the Earth Day Parade. She has a positive attitude, unwavering enthusiasm, and a leadership presence that is both inspiring and appreciated here at TEC. Kersey creates space each week to check in with our team to see what can be done to make an impact around here. Right now, she is providing marketing support around our Energy Challenge program while Lindsey is on maternity leave. What a difference this makes!
We’re so impressed with Kersey’s participation in our local community – in addition to her role at Commute Options, she also serves on the Board of Oregon Green Schools and supports several other local organizations and events. We are very grateful to see Kersey not only involved in our mission, but as a deeply engaged community member who is making Central Oregon a better place to live, work, and play.
Thank you so much for all you do, Kersey!
In her words…
Kersey and her pup, Glory.
The Environmental Center is where community and advocacy meet in beautiful harmony. It’s a place to learn about our living environment and how we can better support it. It brings people together to explore in the dirt and clean up our trash. Most of all, I volunteer with The Environmental Center because of the supportive and passionate staff. Being of service is a value I hold high and the people at TEC allow me to embrace that while making sure that I’m learning along the way. What they do for our community has endless importance and I am always happy to make their jobs a little easier.
Currently, I am the Walking School Bus and Volunteer Coordinator for Commute Options. The program provides a service to students in the Central Oregon region who have culture and infrastructure barriers, making it difficult for them to have access to walking to school. The Walking School Bus program employs adults to lead groups of students to and from school on planned routes. As the Volunteer Coordinator, I have the opportunity to work with community members who want to lend a hand.
If you were to share a lecture on one topic you’re passionate about, what would you discuss?
I would share the importance of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion trainings for our community, both for our work and personal environments. No matter where you live, there are people from different socioeconomic classes, races, ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations, to name a few. We need to do the work in order to gain the necessary skills to know that we are inviting everyone and implementing inclusive practices every day.
Where would you most like to go in the world that you haven’t visited yet?
My next travel adventure will hopefully be to Italy with my mom. She has lived in Florida her entire life and has always wanted to wander around the art museums and eat all of the delicious food in Italy. It would be such a privilege to be the one who accompanies her to her favorite place that she’s never been to.
What’s your favorite sustainable practice at home?
Composting! Turning our food scraps, yard clippings and cardboard boxes into nutrient filled soil for our garden is a blast. We have our own science experiment growing in our yard. For me, it’s a way to reconnect to the Earth and contribute to our food system.