Skip to content
The Bay Backpack logo. A school backpack followed by a stylized writing of the words Bay Backpack.

New Year, New Backpacker!

by
Bill Whorton

Happy New Year, Bay Backpackers! We certainly hope that you all had enjoyable holidays and took some time to relax outside of your schools and other educational facilities.

As the New Year begins, we’re facing a transition here at Bay Backpack. Not only are we on the cusp of our one-year anniversary, but we also now have a new “head” Bay Backpacker.

Over the past four months or so, Kristin and I have had the privilege of managing the site and working with all of you great environmental educators. We’ve enjoyed meeting you, working with you, hearing your stories and forming partnerships that will last beyond our tenure.

In the beginning of December, Sarah, our new Bay Backpacker, was hired and since then, she has been learning the ropes of the site and how it all works while shadowing Kristin and me.

Sarah comes from a background in environmental science at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa. Within her major, she concentrated on conservation, research and stewardship of marine, estuarine and aquatic environments and species. While at Dickinson, she participated in the LUCE Integrative Watershed Semester, which combined classroom activities, community fieldwork, independent research, and travel and immersion in the Chesapeake Bay and Mississippi River basins. She has also worked for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation as a summer education intern on Smith Island. So Sarah is no stranger to the Chesapeake or to the worlds of stewardship and education.

I’ve been around Bay Backpack since its early days, and I’m thrilled with the growth its experienced. And I am very excited for the growth I am sure it will continue to have under Sarah’s direction.

Thank you for allowing Kristin and me to be a part of this community for the past few months. We’ll still be around from time to time, but we hope that you will start this New Year by helping us welcome our New Bay Backpacker!

And be sure to be on the lookout for a series of anniversary posts throughout this month! We can’t believe Bay Backpack is already one year old!