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TTU Senior spotlight: Kalli Gardenhire

While the future is a bit murky for many people right now, it’s kind of an exciting time for some like Texas Tech senior Kalli Gardenhire.

“This time has made me anxious, but in a way that I can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen next,” she said. It’s a fresh start for Gardenhire uniquely shaped by the current climate. She’s excited to see where this will take her.
 

Before the coronavirus reached Lubbock, Gardenhire assumed she would enter the workforce after graduating. She’s receiving her bachelor’s degree in media and communication, but in terms of what she wants to do for a career, she hasn’t decided. “Anything where I’m helping someone….would be really fulfilling for me.”

With that in mind, she’s exploring an option she hadn’t seriously considered until now. “I’m thinking of going into the more volunteer route, like AmeriCorps,” she said. She thinks an experience like AmeriCorps will be useful at a time like this when so many people are looking for work.

While so many industries have been hit hard by the pandemic, volunteer efforts like that of AmeriCorps, have ramped up. They’ve even pivoted their missions to respond to the coronavirus crisis. According to the AmeriCorps website, they’ve got over six thousand volunteers actively engaged with COVID-19 emergency response.

“At this point in time, instead of jumping into grad school,” Gardenhire said. “I think it would be kind of cool to be thrown out into the real world in a kind of structured manner.” Gardenhire is excited about the opportunity to merge two of her passions: food and helping people. She said she’s already well on her way through the application process. She had had an interview over zoom the day before our interview for the Texas Hunger Initiative in Austin.

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