By Emma Giebel, Loyola University Maryland student
I came into this internship ready to learn, but also hesitant. While I was excited about the opportunity to learn more about veganism and expand my writing skills, my lack of experience working for a publication, or in any field of professional writing, made me concerned about whether or not I was qualified for this position. Growing up, I was never a great writer. Math and science were my best subjects, and I usually struggled with essays throughout high school. It wasn’t until college that I really found a way to make writing a skill of mine. I decided that my growing interest in environmentalism was more than just an interest, and that it would hopefully evolve into a career, but I would need to be able to communicate the science that I knew to those that may not have a scientific background. For the next semester, I registered for “Writing about the Environment,” where I was able to write about environmental issues that I feel passionate about, personal experiences with my environment, and other works pertaining to science and the planet. I had such a great time doing the work for that class, and it took some time for me to realize exactly why; I was writing about something I cared about. I care about the planet, so writing about issues surrounding the planet would be far more interesting to me than any essay I’ve written in the past. This realization helped me prepare for this internship, because vegetarianism and health are passions of mine that I was ready to explore.
My favorite aspect of this internship was that I was able to work on a variety of different projects at one time. Whether I was writing up entries for VRG’s restaurant guides, assisting with scholarship applications, or working on one of my many articles, I was participating in different aspects of vegan activism. While researching information for the restaurant guides, I was able to see a wide variety of new up and coming restaurants throughout the country. Whether they were soul food buffets or small cafés, they always made me crave the amazing options being served.
Reviewing the scholarship applications was very uplifting considering the many young people that are already participating in activism work at such a young age. So many applicants showed a passion for veganism and vegetarianism, that it must have been incredibly difficult to find out who was the most deserving. My favorite responsibility during this internship involved the many articles that I wrote, covering topics such as restaurant reviews, meal advice for teenage vegans, product reviews for Veggie Bits, an interview with Steve Brill concerning education about edible wild plants, or the reactions to working Veggie booths on my university campus.
One of my favorite articles that I wrote was a review for a café on Long Beach Island, NJ called Living on the Veg. When I spent a weekend down at the beach, I went to the café to grab lunch, and it was an amazing experience. It was the first vegan sandwich of its kind that I had ever tried, and I know it will become a staple of my diet this upcoming summer when I will be living there. Through writing about food for these past few months, I now know more about the complexities of a restaurant or product reviews that I previously would have never considered. There are a near endless number of variables that contribute to what make a meal “good” or “great,” and trying to capture every one of them is more difficult than one may think. But what has made this process far easier is the “why” of it all. While I have raved about the delicious entrées at the restaurants I have visited and the snacks I have tried, the most important part of eating vegan is the reason behind it; because those that are vegan care about the interests of the planet and the animals over the desire to eat meat. The Vegetarian Resource Group puts in all the effort we do, whether that’s providing helpful information about health, spreading awareness about environmentalism, or sharing a guide of vegan-friendly restaurants, because we want to see a world where it’s commonplace and easy to be vegan. It’s been an honor and a privilege to work for this information, especially knowing that I have contributed to a cause that has become such a huge part of my life recently. I hope to carry on the lessons I have learned in my short time here in my career in the future.
For information about The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, see https://www.vrg.org/student/index.php
To support The Vegetarian Resource Group outreach, donate at www.vrg.org/donate