December 07, 2015
A member of the Otter Products social media team, Ashley has been an OtterCares Ambassador for two years. Her passion and enthusiasm for our foundation’s mission make her a great advocate as she gives of her own personal time and encourages others to get involved!
Why are you an OtterCares Ambassador? I became an OtterCares Ambassador because I personally love to volunteer and I wanted to help promote volunteerism within our company. When I discovered that the OtterCares mission was to champion innovative education that inspires youth to become entrepreneurs and philanthropists who create lasting and impactful change in their communities, I was sold! I have always felt like as if the youth of today will help drive the success of our future and the OtterCares mission believes that too!
Why do you volunteer? As far back as I can remember, volunteering has been a big part of my life – it’s something my parents taught at a young age and I even remember volunteering as a 5th grade student, teaching younger elementary students to use basic math. When I left home for college, I joined the Hesperia Junior Honor Society at CSU, an organization focused solely on volunteerism and giving back to our local community, and before graduating I was promoted to President of this organization as well.
Share one of your favorite recent volunteer opportunities: A recent OtterCares, mission-based volunteering opportunity I completed was with Junior Achievement Business Week. A large group of high school students come together for a week-long project and were tasked with creating a new case for the OtterBox case company. As part of this project, I was able to help with the planning stages of Business Week, I provided guided tours to the students while they were visiting OtterBox facilities, I assisted with answering questions the students had throughout the week and I also helped with judging the final projects as well. In general, Junior Achievement Business Week is there for the students to get hands-on, real-life business experience but in reality, I think it was myself as a volunteer that got more out of the experience than the students. Being able to see our youth’s amazing ideas come to life and seeing their ideas applied to real-world situations brings me a sense of excitement for what we will see in the future.
Why do you think the OtterCares mission is important? I believe the OtterCares mission is vitally important to our overall success because the youth of today will be and are creating the future of tomorrow.