Hello Sierra Club members, followers, and readers! My name is Alexander Behzadi and I am a student at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. During the second semester of my junior year, I was given an amazing opportunity, the chance to volunteer with the Sierra Club Maryland Chapter. When I first arrived I was given the chance to work with a variety of committees and teams.
As of now, I have been a part of the Sierra Club for about 3 months, and one thing I love about it is that the people within the organization truly care so much about these issues, and many of them do it without any recognition. I have worked closely with the Clean Energy team it is inspiring to see everyone within this team work together and go the extra mile just to help bring justice and progress to our beautiful planet.
Our biggest project we worked on and hope to keep going was our Clean Energy Trivia Batlle where Maryland citizens and clean energy gurus went against local representatives and mayors that committed themselves to eventually crossing over to 100% clean energy in their area! The event was a smash, and it was a huge eye-opener for me and I would argue also for the rest of the team. The event was made for all, it was a place for people with different backgrounds to come together, win some prizes, learn something new, and of course, compete against their local reps and clean energy gurus. Creating and bringing the event to life was not an easy task, especially with covid, tight schedules, and not much money. But with the Clean Energy team attacking this we were able to get it done. Our entire team put their heads together, and we were able to layout manageable weekly tasks that we then executed to bring this idea to life. We had many moving pieces but the big ones were creating the game and finding a platform to run it. Also getting Maryland citizens, mayors, local representatives, and clean energy gurus to attend the event, and managing RSVPs, raffle entries, prizes, and much more. At the end of it all when it finally came down to the day of the event, in my eyes and the rest of the team it was a huge success, we had about 30 participants, 4 mayors, and everyone had a good time. Without a doubt, I believe we can do a few more moving forward, and possibly some other ideas we have in the works. Hopefully, you can also be a part of them by visiting our calendar and joining the Clean Renewable Energy Team meetings! Also, a huge shout out to the clean energy team and the work everyone has done, thank you!
All the best,
Alexander Behzadi
