18 May April Trip to Atlanta

I recently attended the 2nd Annual Grants, Agreements and Partnership Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia from April 23rd -28th. I assisted in the preparation and facilitation of the event, we had around 115 people come together! I assisted with some of the event planning, setting up nametags, coordinating with other teams to get materials for the event and helping with some of the activities.  It was a great opportunity to listen in on what is working and areas of improvement within the world of partnerships, grants and agreements. I was able to understand the partnership process better through an activity that drew out the process. There was also an opportunity to listen from a panel of partners in region 8 and they expressed difficulties and benefits of working with the Forest Service. That was a great opportunity because the audience was receptive to the feedback and brainstormed on some ways for improvement.

We were also able to visit Coca-Cola which is one of the Forest Service’s National partners at their Georgia location. During our visit to Coca-Cola, I was able to listen to their Sustainability team’s work and listen to their plans for future work. The last activity we did was visit and hike one of the nearby forests as well as hearing from the local forest. At the forest we were able to listen to some of their partnership work and hear from some children who participate in some of the partner organization’s programs, it was very moving to see how the work changes the lives of young children. It was a great trip, I got to reconnect with a lot of people from my team as well as meeting new people.