Dear Miah,
When I started my year of service at Appetite for Change I had no idea I’d be gaining such an amazing supervisor and friend. I remember the first time I saw you in one of my classes speaking about a service learning project. Aside from your amazing style and way of speaking about the work you did, you stood out to me because you were the only person of color of all the eight or so organizations. I signed up to work with AFC right away because I knew I wanted to work with you! This opportunity lead to you asking me to be your AmeriCorps VISTA for the 2017-18 year and I had no idea how amazing it’d be.
We hit it off right away as we shared common interests and backgrounds around food, justice, and identities. I remember when all of the supervisors came to the our professional development day to do strengthsfinder and all of our strengths complimented each other, but we didn’t need a quiz to tell us we made an amazing team! I’ve had some good supervisors over the years, but I’ve never had one as cool, understanding, and bad-ass as you. When I came in being unsure of myself and abilities, you were there to pump me up and encourage me. The first Northside Fresh Quarterly Meeting I attended as a staff person I was giving the speech about the coalition in front of 50 people and completely blanked on what I was saying. I nervously looked at you and all I needed was your encouraging smile to regain my thoughts and carry on. Now six months later I successfully facilitated my first conference workshop all by myself. Seeing how much you have accomplished in so little time inspires me to be better and set the bar higher for myself.
Not only have we built a great work relationship, I also am happy to call you my friend. We’ve gotten to hang out outside of work through things like organizing book clubs and selling at pop-up markets together to doing karaoke with my mom and running around Boston getting Chinese food in the middle of the night during a conference. You always make me feel like I can bring my full self to our work and I know I can count on you to celebrate the good times and have my back through the challenging times.
You are one of the most inspiring people I know and I am so fortunate to have you in my life. In this season of love I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate you in so many ways! I look forward to continuing to shake the world with you and be lifelong friends!
Your VISTA & Friend,
Melanie
