Kelsey Kaline

I grew up in a Detroit, Michigan suburb. I spent my first 18 years in a neighborhood filled with young families, a gentle rolling stream, and the best sledding hill in the zip code.

My parents, armed with bulky camcorders were the type to document everything about my life. I am blessed to have hours in footage of a miniature version of the girl I am today.This loving documentation of the seemingly mundane, ended up setting the stage for what would become my passion of storytelling.

For as long as I can remember, my identity has always been intertwined with water. It wasn't until middle school however, amongst my pre teen musings of crushes that I realized the importance of water and the environment- a realization that would shape my career and personal trajectory.

A trip to Tanzania when I was 16 showed me that different cultures have totally different approaches to environmental issues. I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and at one of the camps my guide, a native of a local Maasai community, said that the glaciers would be gone in 10 years. Snuggled in a tent around a camping stove, my eyes widened in the realization that my actions in the U.S could be ruining communities half way around the world.

As a Sophomore at Vanderbilt University I created an interdisciplinary major of Sustainable Community Development. I’ve been lucky enough to have had academic support behind me in this decision. Through research grants I was able to spend my junior year moonlighting as an employee of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. I was put in charge of the R&D of the employee recycling program. In order to find the faults in the system, I had to interview employees from every single state office. I ended up interviewing around four hundred people. While some people were rude, others gave me hope, and they all were a learning experience.

This summer I worked for the Nashville Civic Design Center, a nonprofit dedicated to the expansion and education of urban design and strong community principles in Nashville. I got to help on the expansion of the Design Your Neighborhood Program which helps inner city youth learn about civic participation, urban design, and community development.

So as I sit here as a Senior trying to piece together sentences I'm really just a living example that we all have a story to tell.

I’m just another kid trying to write mine.