During the last week of my CLA experience, I spent the majority of my time helping volunteer for Graduation Day which took place on August 13, 2022. The volunteer that I did mostly consisted of preparing name tags, making little gift bags, and other fun stuff. Because of this, I got to spend a lot of time with the CAUSE staff members and some of my fellow CLA cohort members. I had a great time helping out and exploring Little Tokyo.
Finally, the day came and it was time for Graduation. I remembered feeling nervous because I had to give a mini-speech to my CLA cohort and the audience in the background. However, I was able to overcome this through the constant encouragement from my CLA cohort and CAUSE staff members. Because of this, I was able to give my mini-speech without any issues and it went well.
Later, my cohort members and I took a big picture along with other interns from different organizations. I look forward to seeing this picture because it represents youth and power. On the other hand, the Graduation ended with a Soirée. During this Soirée, many elected officials came forward and gave speeches to the audience. It was very inspirational listening to their speeches. In fact, my colleague, Arali Seneviratne, also gave a mini-speech.
As Arali walked up to the stage, my cohort and I gathered in the front to applaud, as well as encourage her. Her speech was amazing and powerful. It made some of my cohort members cry as we all huddled together. Although this was our last time together, we all know that we will be reunited one day. We joked around and laughed a lot that night. Definitely something that I will always reminisce about.
Ultimately, Graduation went well and I won’t ever forget my time at CAUSE. I will always be grateful to the organization and all the people I met in California. On my flight back home to Minnesota, I made a list of things to share with my family and friends on what I did in California. Some of the takeaways that I plan to share with them is the mock campaign project that my cohort and I did. This project really helped me understand how to work as a team and run for office.
To illustrate, as one of the finance directors, it has forced me to think outside of the box and comprehend how much funding is needed for a campaign. Likewise, some other takeaways that I plan to share are the informative guest panels which included previous CLA alumni, CAUSE Board, Chiefs of Staff, and many more. All of these guest panels taught me various things such as one’s career route not being a straight line and to not be afraid of trying out new areas.
Although my time was cut short this summer, I hope to come back to California at some point either to visit, work, or stay. I definitely plan to catch up with the CAUSE staff members and CLA cohort. Given all of this, I would like to end my last blog here and I hope that everyone had fun reading the blogs that my cohort wrote.
