This semester, I got to work with Baltimore Tree Trust as their communication design intern. I was lucky enough to meet my supervisor, the senior communications director at Baltimore Tree Trust, at the fall semester Practice and Pie event hosted by Career Development. Immediately, I became obsessed with Baltimore Tree Trust and the work they do for the Baltimore community. Baltimore Tree Trust is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization that is focused on providing trees, environmental education, and career pathways in forestry to the Baltimore community. The bulk of what they do revolves around their team of Neighborhood Forestry Technicians – an awesome team of people born and raised in Baltimore who go out into the community and plant trees in neighborhoods that need it most.
Beyond just planting trees, Baltimore Tree Trust also provides educational resources on the importance of green spaces in urban environments and seeks to unite different Baltimore communities through city greening. This sort of work was super inspiring to me, so I reached out to my supervisor not long after the event, and somehow managed to impress the BTT team enough that they took me on. The bulk of my work at BTT was centered around helping the current communications team – which consisted of my supervisor and two other wonderful people – by creating email and social media graphics, print material, and fun graphics for fundraisers and events. Other than my supervisor, most of the team didn’t have a lot of graphic design education, so I was there to help create visuals for some of their messaging. Most of their communications revolved around environmental education and fundraising, and I was able to learn a lot about Baltimore’s native ecosystems through my research for the different campaigns and events they were involved in. I was able to create a lot of really great work that I’m super proud of (and which will definitely go into my portfolio), learn a lot about Baltimore’s environment and the importance of green spaces in cities, and create connections with great people doing important work.
This experience has definitely helped me realize that I want to continue doing work in the realms of activism and education, and showed me what my strengths are as a designer as well as gave me the opportunity to work on my weaknesses. I’m super thankful for the team at Baltimore Tree Trust for giving me the opportunity to work with them this semester, and for Career Development for not only having this for-credit internship program, but also for hosting Practice & Pie! If not for that event, it would have been a lot more difficult for me to secure this internship.
