“Ever since being a teenager, I’ve been like, this is bad -- the system that we’re living in isn’t working. It’s taking us so far away from the way we could be, and I think the way we want to be. I was looking for a way to change, like what changes could I make within my own life that could ripple outwards into the community around me? In my previous job I worked at a small deli that started bringing in local food grown by local farmers and that was really the beginning of the journey that I find myself on now where I’ve realized, like, change starts at the smallest level. It starts at how you’re viewing your community, how you’re seeing yourself within it, and how you’re taking care of both yourself and your community, and that was a real powerful realization for me. And so moving forward from that job, I was committed to staying involved with local food. I think that that’s the first step of the cultural transformation. So, finding the co-op and knowing that they pretty much had that same mission statement, like education, food rights, community, vibrancy, all of that -- this job really seems ideal to me, it’s the kind of place I was looking to become a part of. The reason I’m here is to continue social change and to help people and to bring us more connected to a community.”