My Nonprofit Reviews

I graduated from UNC-Wilmington in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in marine biology and another in environmental science. I had the most difficult time finding job opportunities afterward related to my fields of study. Throughout the next couple of years, I had random jobs including food service and house cleaning. During the Covid 19 pandemic, I was unable to continue my house cleaning job so I took that time off and decided to work on getting back to my passion of environmental conservation and restoration. I began volunteering with Plastic Ocean Project in December of 2020 through their monthly HWY 421 cleanup and through this event I met the executive director, Bonnie Monteleone. When I asked about other opportunities with POP, she offered me an internship position working in the lab on a research project focused on microplastics in river samples. After my internship was completed, I was offered a position as a laboratory technician. Today, I am the research laboratory director of Plastic Ocean Project. I am grateful to Bonnie for giving me the opportunity to prove myself and providing an environment for my skills and knowledge to grow. I have been given many enriching opportunities including traveling to Alaska to remove marine debris from the coast, being featured in multiple documentaries, and speaking on our research at the North Carolina Marine Debris Symposium. Thank you Plastic Ocean Project for giving this volunteer a chance!