My name is Ali Luedtke and I joined the Partners for Clean Streams team this summer as an intern. I decided that this would be the perfect opportunity for me to get some real world experience working in the environment and organizing events.

In past years through the ZooTeen Program, I was able to attend quite a few Partners for Clean Streams events such as Get the Lead Out, Clean Your Streams, and the Youth Patch Day Workshop. Even though I have always had a love for the environment and animals, these experiences really opened my eyes to what was happening in the world. After attending all of these events, I did some research of my own and discovered that lots of places all over the world are having water quality issues like Japan, Africa, and Europe. Up until then I had really only thought about ocean pollution as being an issue, but this brought things to a whole new level.

During the Get the Lead Out events I picked up not only fishing line, but tons of garbage. After realizing the global and local issue, I began to sign up for as many Get the Lead Out events as I could and attended Clean Your Streams in 2013. During the Clean Your Streams event in 2013, a new sense of belonging came over me and I realized that I wanted to dedicate my life to saving these waterways from human destruction. I want to not only go out on my own and do cleanup projects, but educate people about the challenges our local and world waterways are facing.

I’m really excited to see what this summer has in store for me while I’m helping to lead projects, organize events, and educate the public. I found my true calling while attending Partners for Clean Streams events and taking a variety of science classes during high school. This fall I will embark on a new adventure while attending Bowling Green State University for Environmental Policy and Analysis. Until then I will be doing various tasks for PCS such as event planning, augmenting and building their social media platforms, helping lead projects, educating people, and most of all saving our local waterways. For more information about what I will be doing, you can follow Partners for Clean Streams on Twitter and Facebook. Hopefully I’ll see you around this summer rocking out some Get the Lead Out events!