Jacquelyn Jones - New Intern Profile

Intern Profile - Jackie Jones 

As cliché as the “falling in love with ocean” stories often are I can’t help but share mine and explain why that has lead me to join Save the Harbor/Save the Bay as an intern for the Summer of 2014. For the majority of my childhood I spent my summers in Maine taking sailing lessons and climbing along the rocky intertidal zone with my little sister. We waded through tide pools and searched endlessly for the ever-evasive starfish that seemed to only hide under rocks that we were too weak to lift.  The countless hours spent climbing rocks, slipping on seaweed, and examining the remnants of seagull dinners made a lasting impression on me. These adventures fostered my love for the ocean and that passion never died even now as I graduate from Merrimack College with my B.S. in Biology.

            This isn’t my first experience working as an intern for a nonprofit organization whose goal was environmental advocacy and conservation. Last summer I was fortunate enough to work with a group that conducted research on whales and provided naturalists for whale watches all along the New England coast. As amazing as this experience was I felt that there was more I could be doing to help conserve our coastlines. Working as an environmental policy intern with Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was the ideal opportunity for me to make more of an impact; working in environmental policy will help me see first hand the true process behind environmental conservation.

            Tying together my biology background and environmental policy future I hope that I will learn how to effectively conserve some of the most threatened ecosystems in our world today.  The strides that Save the Harbor/Save the Bay has made in cleaning up Boston Harbor and its beaches only makes me optimistic about the sheer power nonprofit organizations can have when working closely with state government and scientists alike. I am so excited to be part of such a groundbreaking group and I’m looking forward to the great experiences this summer has in hold.