This is the second article of a series looking at how college age young people live Sustainability and how this experience transforms their life.
In this series, we looked first at how the Drexel University Environmental Sustainability Community experiment came about? You will also learn how the experience transformed the life of the Group leader/facilitator and the life of some of the group original members: Kate the tall Science Undergrad Student who took her friends dumpster diving,
Megan the low-key efficient organizer and Ben, the unexpected environmentalist.
This post is focused on how Brett’s life was affected by getting assigned the role of Leader/Facilitator of the Drexel University ESC.
As I mentioned in the prior post, at the time the ESC was co-created by Drexel University Residence Hall Administration and by the students who signed up for it, Bret Haymaker was getting by on the meager income of a Residence Hall Assistant. After an initial failed attempts to find the interns with right combination of skills, the Residence Hall Administration took notice that Brett had recently organized a “Stair Run” that raised enough money to buy 300 mosquito nets through “Malaria No More”. Brett started working with the students enrolled in the Environmental Sustainability Community the very same day he got the job offer.
For Brett, the experience of leading and facilitating this group of young people passionate about Sustainability was a turning point in his life. In Brett’s words: He fell “in love with the kids”, their passion became his passion and vice versa. He watched them grow and mature and become autonomous.
How Brett changed:
The experience made Brett more aware of his power of bringing people together and identifying a common interest, a common thread. Brett can gather people around an idea and make it happen. And the Drexel University Residential Hall administration also noticed that Brett could make things happen. Through the experience of nurturing the unfolding of the Drexel Sustainability Learning Community, Brett’s leadership skills and qualities revealed themselves to himself and to the world.
