{"id":13995,"date":"2019-08-12T10:00:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T14:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=13995"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:26:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T18:26:11","slug":"vegetarian-resource-group-oklahoma-intern-vegan-internship-opens-doors-for-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/12\/vegetarian-resource-group-oklahoma-intern-vegan-internship-opens-doors-for-education\/","title":{"rendered":"VEGETARIAN RESOURCE GROUP OKLAHOMA INTERN: Vegan internship opens doors for education"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Emily Carter<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My excitement for the summer peaked when I\narrived at Baltimore\u2019s BWI Airport in the middle of June to begin my first ever\nvegan job. The corners of my smile were as acute as a folded page in the Vegetarian Journal<\/em>. For the weeks prior,\nmy family was getting annoyed at me for how excited I was to finally be around\npeople who share some of my views. (Oklahoma is not too kind to vegans, by the\nway.) Don\u2019t get me wrong, they were still happy for me! This is what I had been\nlooking forward to all semester; I was eager to begin turning my compassion\ninto action. At the beginning, I had doubts about whether I wanted to write for\na living, but this internship held the perfect opportunity for me to discover\nwhere I belonged on the spectrum of vegan activism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google is my lifesaver. I found this internship\nthrough a quick search: \u201cvegan jobs near me.\u201d The VRG internship was the first\nresult. Prior to this internship, I did marine biology and freshwater ecology\nresearch. I knew I wanted a job that focused on veganism, I just did not know\nwhere to begin! It is not every day you stumble into a vegan job market and\nhave options! One of the things I realized this summer is that a lot of the\npeople I met created opportunities for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My goals coming into this internship were to\ngain exposure to vegan activism and careers, network with organizations,\ninteract with a developed vegan community, contribute to vegan research and\npublication, as well as engage with the Baltimore community about research,\nevents, and how to get involved. So far, I have been able to accomplish many of\nmy goals, and the rest are coming to fruition as I complete the last two weeks\nof this internship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While here, I helped teach a vegan cooking class\nat Christopher\u2019s Place employment academy, aided in photographing food for the\nGreener Kitchen\u2019s menu, worked a booth at Waverly farmers market, did outreach\nat Roots Vegan Fest, visited a 93-year old vegan who has been vegan for 70\nyears, tasted amazing vegan food, and wrote all about it. Before I leave, I\nwill have also attended a national animal rights conference and Vegan SoulFest.\nNever in my life have I been able to interact with so many vegans. It has\nhelped me realize the diversity of the movement and how we can make a\ndifference wherever we are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have networked with doctors, nutritionists,\npublic health specialists, writers, restaurant owners, and food photographers.\nI feel more secure entering the workplace after being exposed to the variety of\njobs people have veganized. It is inspiring to see people sculpt their love for\nanimals and environment into infrastructure that will reach many people and\nsave lives. Seeing the various ways vegans have positioned themselves in the\nmovement, and how they shaped their career to make a living while saving lives\nhas been the most valuable experience for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My experience at the VRG equipped me with the\nskills and network necessary to progress my vegan career. Also, the experience\nof living in a city for a summer as opposed to rural Oklahoma affected me in\nlife-changing ways. Seeing people living their dreams because they have\nresources in the city has inspired me to not settle for anything. If you can\ndream it, you can be it! This is something my small town failed to teach me.\nGrowing up poor and Native, you are never advised to dream big because it was\nnever in the cards for you. Now I am considering business, medical school, or a\nPhD because I am now aware of the power I have to make myself. I could not be\nmore thankful for my experience at the VRG and in Baltimore. As I prepare to\nleave, I am happy knowing I am fueled for a future in whatever arena I choose! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For information about The Vegetarian Resource\nGroup internships, see https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/student\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To support The Vegetarian Resource Group\ninternships and vegan education, donate at www.vrg.org\/donate<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Emily Carter My excitement for the summer peaked when I arrived at Baltimore\u2019s BWI Airport in the middle of June to begin my first ever vegan job. The corners of my smile were as acute as a folded page in the Vegetarian Journal. For the weeks prior, my family was getting annoyed at me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13995"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13997,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13995\/revisions\/13997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}