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WAVE Foundation (WAVE) is on a mission to excite, engage and educate our community about the wonders of aquatic life and the importance of conservation. They partnered with Public Allies Cincinnati for the 2018-2019 program year seeking to increase their capacity to deliver conservation and animal focused education to our community by focusing on their work with teachers. According to WAVE, “We previously lacked capacity to survey teachers to determine their needs/desires from our content.”

To meet this need, WAVE hosted Ally Rachel Cahall, who was tasked with: 1) facilitating WAVE’s Community Outreach Scholarship Fund (COSF) programs to students in low-income schools (>75% students receive free/reduced lunch), and 2) researching and creating a Community Based Science program and curriculum focused on the Ohio River.

Erin Schultz, WAVE’s Conservation Education Manager, had this to say about Rachel: “Rachel facilitated nearly all of our COSF programming this year. It is concentrated to the school year (as these are the grant recipients) but even when not facilitating these programs, Rachel used the experience she gained in them to better inform and prepare for all of her programming. She was a quick learner and became an example to other staff.” Erin’s glowing review of Rachel’s work didn’t end there though, as she further stated, “Rachel absolutely excelled at [creating the Community Based Science program]. She jumped in to a topic and task that she had no experience with and quickly became a resource to the rest of our department. She gathered all the necessary materials, created curriculum, found safe sampling locations, and facilitated many lessons with students of all ages. This was a great success.”

Girl Scouts of Western Ohio (GSWO) partnered with Public Allies Cincinnati for the 2018-2019 program year with the goal of increasing program delivery to underserved areas; specifically, the Hamilton, Monroe, Cheviot, Price Hill, and Saylor Park communities. Building on GSWO’s participation in the United Way of Greater Cincinnati’s Family Centered Learning Cohort where they practiced and honed family centered learning principals to better engage the entire family, they were looking for an Ally to reach youth and adults in the target communities.

GSWO was matched with Ally Robyn Petersman, who created activities to connect with youth and adults in the target communities, and also developed and implemented ways to better reach members through the use of technology.

According to Erin Focke, Director of Regional Services for Girl Scouts of Western Ohio (GSWO), Robyn Petersman “helped us ensure that we reached more than 100 girls that we may not have been able to without her support.”