What a special month this is!! As we wrap up the summer soon, we now have the great task of celebrating the incredible work that happened these last couple busy months. Let’s gather all our cheer and gratitude for our suite of Climate Heroes of the Month – summer interns Allison Miller, Annika Shikverg, Ella Reichard, and Leah Kugel!
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Allison Miller
Born and raised in New Jersey, Allison has always had a passion for sustainability and environmental advocacy and knew she had to incorporate it within her studies. She is inspired by making real-world change through marketing and loves when her two interests intersect. She has studied in both Paris, France and Florence, Italy where she studied both strategic communications, and had a sustainability marketing internship!
As the Communications Intern with us this summer, Allison showed up in multiple ways and made a difference. A big way in which she supported the organization was through making creative graphic designs for our social media and other places. She also re-launched the Letters to the Editor (LTE) Committee of volunteers, which was something we had been wanting to do for awhile! It takes a lot of skill and patience to manage people with varying interests, availabilities, and levels of experience, but Allison took on the task and shined.
Allison was even creating organizing spreadsheets to be used in key campaigns, something that is needed to ensure things are moving forward smoothly.
“During my time with 350 CO, I am grateful to have gained hands-on experience in strategic communications and advocacy by creating impactful content that supported their climate justice campaigns!” says Allison. “I loved working with everyone and seeing how important grassroots organizations are.”
“Allison truly went above and beyond during her internship.” – Alli, Communications Coordinator
Going into her senior year at the University of Colorado Boulder, she is beginning her honors thesis, focusing on how sustainability and advertising intersect and exploring effective ways to communicate it. She is majoring in Advertising with double minors in Business Sustainability and Geography. In her free time you can find her listening to good music, going on beach walks with her dog and watercolor painting with her roommates.
Thank you so much Allison for your incredible contribution to climate action in Colorado!
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Annika Shikverg
Annika was born and raised in Colorado and has always loved spending time outside. Over the years, that love for the outdoors has turned into a passion for protecting the environment, so that everyone can continue enjoying these beautiful places we call home for years to come.
“Before interning for 350, I didn’t know as much about the climate and climate action as I know now coming out of my internship,” says Annika. “My time with 350 really inspired me to continue my passion for the environment and trying to protect it, especially this beautiful state I have called home for so many years.”
As the Beyond Oil & Gas and Climate Policy Intern this summer, Annika really stepped into such an important role. With one of our teammates out for a number of weeks, we needed a dedicated leader to support the Policy committee. Not only was Annika down for the task, but she did a wonderful job keeping volunteers engaged and involved! She was also a liaison in a coalition space in which critical work was happening. It was a relief to have someone like Annika there ensuring we stayed connected. She even created spreadsheets of reporting around oil and gas and also of climate impacts and costs in CO, a very detailed oriented task.
“I really enjoyed my time interning for 350 because it made me feel like I was making a difference, from all the research I did, to all the emails I sent about different policy initiatives people can get involved in, to tabling at the Aurora EcoFest and having heart felt conversations with people not only about the environment but also the other issues concerning our world today,” says Annika. “I learned more than I ever could imagine this summer!”
Her support of movement building efforts, like tabling at EcoFest in June, was an excellent demonstration of her flexibility and leadership too when it was needed most! Even our partners at the event noted just how helpful and great Annika was.
“I intend to stay very invested in climate action in the future. My hope in a couple years is to end up in law school where I can apply my knowledge of the things that I care about, like the environment, and fight for the change we all want and need as a society as a lawyer,” says Annika.
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Ella Reichard
Ella’s environmental journey started young, thanks to a conservationist grandmother who sparked her love for nature. Since then, she’s worked across the sustainability landscape from leading divestment campaigns and organizing climate strikes, to digging into illegal fishing policies at the State Department and utility regulation at Renew Missouri. Before law school, Ella studied at the University of Missouri, where she double majored in Political Science and International Studies and served as Student Director of the campus Sustainability Program.
Over the summer Ella supported legal and policy work and served as our law clerk, assisting our Staff Attorney, Bobbie Mooney and our Climate Policy Analyst, Heidi Leathwood. During her brief 3 months with us, Ella accomplished an impressive amount of law and policy research and writing projects.
Ella drafted public comments on behalf of 350 Colorado as well as comment toolkits and “one-click” comment letters to make it easy for our members to submitting public comments on several state and federal government decisions including federal oil and gas leases, a state air pollution permit for a coal fired power plant, and EPA’s reckless proposals to roll back greenhouse gas standards for fossil fuel power plants and mobile sources.
Ella also contributed to 350 Colorado’s new litigation program including assisting with developing tools and systems for tracking decisions and actions, researched oil and gas air pollution permits, and drafted a legal memo regarding jurisdictional questions. Ella also published an informational article about the horrific “Galeton Geyser” oil & gas well blowout that happened in April this year that spewed benzene and will likely take 5 years to clean up.
“Ella was a delight to work with, hard working, insightful, and passionate about the work. She is clearly on her way to becoming a fantastic legal advocate for our climate!” – Bobbie Mooney, Beyond Oil & Gas Director & Staff Attorney
Now in law school at the University of Colorado, Ella is diving into environmental law, with an interest in climate litigation. She’s exploring how law can be used to hold polluters accountable and lift up communities most impacted by climate change. She is a member of the American Indian Law Clinic, where she is learning how federal Indian law and tribal sovereignty intersect with environmental protections and serves as staff writer on the Colorado Environmental Law Journal. Away from her studies, Ella enjoys hiking with her dog, Liza, and a good literary fiction novel.
We are so grateful for all the incredible work you did this summer Ella, and we wish you all the very best as you head back to school as a 2L at the University of Colorado Law School!
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Leah Kugel
Leah is a Colorado native, and growing up here has inspired her passion for protecting the environment and ensuring the state’s natural beauty can be enjoyed not only by her peers today, but by future generations in the years ahead.
Over the summer, Leah completed a 10-week internship with us in a multi-discipline role. She worked on developing business and financial strategies to support the mission and vision of a fossil-free world, and used her creative skills to support various parts of our communications work. Through it all Leah created so many important resources that we’ve needed for quite some time!
She created great storyboards of a ‘welcome’ video and helped get things in motion to complete that project this year. She made a handy branding guide, plus a presentation for our organization to use in different settings (in collaboration with Allison!). Leah also made a press release template so those can be created more seamlessly in the future!
Fundraising work is not for the faint of heart, and now more than ever we need to ensure that we are not only funded, but we are dynamic in this ever-changing landscape. Leah helped tremendously by making a list of community foundations to connect with, and by continually adding donors to tracking spreadsheets. She even did outreach to businesses to support our work! Not to mention also making catchy 1,3, and 5-pagers on our work to share with donors and the public.
It should come as no surprise either that Leah also supported movement building efforts and helped during the No Kings Rally in Denver in June. It was a hectic day with lots happening, but Leah brought great, supportive energy to ensure things got done.
Leah is a junior at CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, where she is pursuing a double major in Finance and Strategy & Entrepreneurship. On campus, she is part of the Leeds Scholars Program, Boulder Venture Club, and CU’s Scholars of Finance, where she has held leadership roles. She has also gained experience working at a growing space technology startup, supporting strategy, partnerships, and investor relations. In her free time, Leah enjoys exploring local coffee shops, hiking, and traveling.
It’s been such a pleasure working with you Leah, and we’re so grateful for all of your time, energy, and leadership and initiative in this role!
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Wow. It really is incredible to see what individuals and groups of like-minded individuals can accomplish when working together. Thank you SO much to each of you again for a great summer! Your many contributions are now a part of the fabric of work of many climate change advocates, and ones to come. We’re uplifted by your generation of passionate and determined organizers and we can’t wait to see what happens for each of you next!
Written by Chelsea Alexander, Alli, Bobbie Mooney, and Micah Parkin