One of our favorite bands in one of our favorite shirts.
Last week, Live Below The Line worked to raise awareness for the number of people around the world living on less than $1.50 per day.
This is one person's experience shared with you all.
Sometimes, we get a little too caught up in the day to day managing priorities, deadlines, and plans for the future. Tuesday was one of those days, and then we got this email from a customer. Thank you reminding us what it's all about, Happy Customer.
Everyone, meet Caroline. Lover of dogs, puns, and of helping those less fortunate.
Read more in this version of Meet the Interns!
One night last Christmas break, while Jessica was up to her usual Twitter creeping and last minute Christmas shopping, she stumbled upon an article about ESPEROS and their unique business model. To this day, she does not really know how she found the article or why she decided to check out their website for internship openings, but she did...only to find that they were not hiring. If she were Yiwen, she likely would have cried, but instead she decided to send her résumé anyway and then continued her Facebook stalking. Later on during the break, she was surprised to receive an email back inviting her in for an interview.
(Here Jessica finds out that dogs make better pets than squirrels).
The chance to work for a company like ESPEROS was the internship Jessica didn't know she'd been looking for. See, early in the spring of 2012, Jessica had the opportunity to travel to Honduras on a missions trip that would end up rocking her world. While she was there, she saw children wearing TOMS shoes that they had been given and saw firsthand the impact that had on them. Upon returning to the States, Jessica decided that, as she headed to college, she would seek out a major and, in the future, a career focused on helping others. Reflecting on her time in Honduras, she knew that what she wanted more than anything was to help lift people out of the extreme poverty that she witnessed and had not previously known to exist. Working with ESPEROS, she has had the opportunity to make an enormous impact in just that way.
Besides spending her time Tweeting, Facebooking, and Instagramming (all legitimate verbs for a social media intern), Jessica loves paddle boarding and exploring Austin and its music scene. Originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, Jessica chose to attend school in Austin when she was recruited to play volleyball for St. Edward's University.
Jessica's Favorites:
After being fired yet again, Yiwen sheds tears as Jessica cheers (obviously).
Yiwen's biggest mistake was telling her co-workers at ESPEROS about her failed squirrel catching attempt. In Yiwen's words, "Once, a squirrel started following me, so I thought, 'Clearly the squirrel wants to go home with me.' So I bent down and tried to pick it up, but it bit me. It didn't want to come home with me." After divulging that story, her position with ESPEROS changed from Business Development Intern to Intern That-Can't-Be-Taken-Seriously. Before that tragic moment, Yiwen joined the ESPEROS team early February with much eagerness and excitement.
This is how Yiwen landed herself in such a situation:
Yiwen (pronounced Yvanne - like an electric van) is a sophomore at UT-Austin studying Finance and Economics. Despite the nature of her studies, she has always been passionate about children and education. Beginning in middle school, Yiwen helped her mother teach children Sunday School and, as she got older and more independent, she discovered that she greatly enjoyed being surrounded by people shorter than her (which is quite the feat to find). She dove further into education, writing curriculum for after-school programs and training teachers and helpers for Vacation Bible School. Unfortunately, as she entered college, her lack of easy transportation made it difficult for her to pursue her passion in furthering children's knowledge - that is, before ESPEROS gave her a more creative opportunity.
On a separate note, Yiwen has been diagnosed with Compulsive Shopping Addiction Disorder (CSAD - pronounced: see-sad). She is familiar with an unhealthy amount of boutiques around Austin, is subscribed to even more online shopping websites, and regularly undergoes retail therapy treatment. All that said, when her friend introduced her to ESPEROS, she immediately fell in love. Now her CSAD benefits others in the area she cares about most about: education.
Yiwen is now a proud intern of ESPEROS and is happy to bring so much laughter and so many tears (of laughter) to the team.
Other trivial things about Yiwen:
SXSW was a blast this year! Thank you to everyone who came out to see us last week. We met such interesting people throughout the week (bikers, fashion designers, bands, bloggers, principals, curators, and more), and we really enjoyed all the fascinating conversations.
Here’s a quick photo recap of all the fun we had throughout the week.
