Welcome to the MAAV May Newsletter!

MAAV Wraps Up Another Excellent Semester

Congratulations to our Graduates!

May is a bittersweet time. Although MAAV is gearing up for a summer full of telling more mountain stories, we also graduated several interns who are now off to the next journey. For our May Newsletter, we would like to first and foremost congratulate our graduated interns who have made a lasting impact on MAAV.

Congratulations to:

• Leeanna Duong (MAAV Communications Intern)

• Theo Testa (MAAV Audit Intern)

• Reagan Lamkin (MAAV Audit Intern)

• Rachel Poteet (Forest Botanicals Project Intern)

We also have two graduate interns (Amber Wendler and Will Heltzel) who will be leaving us to pursue other academic endeavors. We will miss them both tremendously, but the entire MAAV Team wishes them all the success in their future endeavors. 

We might be a little biased, but we think our interns (past and present) are the very best!

Site Visits Underway

May also marked the first “site visits” for two of our Round 1 projects. “Site Visits,” as MAAV calls them, are a time for the MAAV team to document the hard work Round 1 project leads and partners are putting in to making their projects the best they can be. The first two projects we visited were Montañitas Reimagined. (located in Luray, Virginia) and Forest Botanicals (located in Norton, Virginia). During the site visits, we captured some energizing moments, some tender moments, and a whole lot of moments where we were simply in awe of the passion and dedication our project leads and partners had for their community. Both Montañitas and Forest Botanicals are gearing up to have their project unveilings this Fall! Check out our website to learn more about the work our projects are doing!

MAAV Graduate Assistant Insight

When I saw there was a MAAV graduate assistant position available I was very excited since it combined many things that I am passionate about: storytelling, community engagement, and advocating for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. Also, I met MAAV Co-director, Dr. Emily Satterwhite, shortly after starting my PhD program in Fall 2019 through climate justice work at the university and knew that we had similar values. I soon came to learn that I would get along just as well with the other MAAV team members and that our team would feel like a family…

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