Within his first few weeks at the Outer Coast Year, Isaiah (Washington, DC) began volunteering at the Sitka Sound Science Center.
Less than a month later, he and his peers were generously gifted 15 pounds of salmon as a thank you for their hard work on chum salmon spawning and aquarium deep cleaning. Explaining his choice to enter into a long-term partnership with SSSC, Isaiah said, “I wanted to be involved in a service project that was intensely tied to Sitka and the livelihoods of those living here…I was drawn in because this work is a perfect crossroads between fisheries, science, and education.”
At the end of his first Semester at the Year, Isaiah reflected on what he learned through service. “In my own experience in Alaska, working on a fishing boat over the summer and then working with the Sitka Sound Science Center, I’ve been able to see a whole lot of different perspectives. I’m figuring out how I can help this organization that I know has really great goals — education, fostering a love for science — and doing that in my daily work, like cleaning tanks. Service doesn’t have to be some abstract thing, the menial tasks can be just as rewarding, too.”