Introducing (one of) your newest JPAs!

    Hey y'all! I'm McRae (pronounced somewhere between muh-cray and mick-ray, which is kind of confusing but also the only way I can explain it). I'm 17 years old and going into my senior year at the O'Bryant in Roxbury. After I graduate, I'm planning on going to college and then veterinary school (a.k.a. voluntarily spending eight more years in school). Right now, though, I'm taking classes in a little bit of every subject, partly because I'm interested in learning as much as I can, partly due to graduation requirements. Outside of schoolwork, my number one interest, hobby, and extracurricular is soccer. I've been playing for over ten years now and this year will be my sixth playing for the OB Lady Tigers varsity team (assuming we have a season). I'm one of three soccer co-captains and all of us will be working for Save the Harbor this summer! I also play basketball for OB and dance outside of school. Unfortunately, I couldn't really do any of those things during quarantine, so I've gotten pretty good at baking and doing weird makeup instead.

Me at Pleasure Beach in the middle of winter because somehow, despite living literally
10 minutes from the water, this is the only picture that I can find of me on a beach

    This is going to be my first summer working for Save the Harbor as well as my first summer with a real job outside of cat-sitting. I'm very excited for this summer because all of my friends/teammates who worked for Save the Harbor last year really talked it up in school. I'm also excited about the actual work, of course. I want to be able to do my part to help the environment and hopefully discover whether I might want to go into environmental sciences in college. I'm most looking forward to learning more about Boston's history. I grew up in "Southie" and have been visiting Carson Beach and Castle Island my whole life, but I still feel like I know so little about them. Orientation has already set my expectations pretty high! My favorite part was actually the icebreakers, which, from my experience, are typically painfully awkward. Overall I'm just super excited to be working on the harbor with all of these amazing people this summer.

Peace out y'all :)

McRae