Introducing the newest member of the UP Cycle Design team, April Singleton. While she has only been involved with UP Cycle Design for a few months, April has been a close friend to the founder and CEO of the company, Sierra RyanWallick, all along. Currently April helps to manage UP Cycle Design, ensuring that the whole thing doesn't crash and burn! (lol). April has interests in social entrepreneurship and sustainability and is very passionate about social impact. She has a background in community engagement and social emotional learning which she describes as "personal development for young people."
April met with our newsletter captain and blog intern, Max Sewell, to share a little more about herself!
Interest in Professional and Personal Development
April shed light on her early life when sharing that her interest in professional development was sparked after she moved to the US when she was 12 years old. As April made her way through grade school, it wasn't until college that she found her passion for wanting to help people with their personal development. Her niche is really in mindfulness and understanding how the entrepreneurial mindset can be used for personal and professional development.
Previous Work
April has had the chance to work with individuals from a variety of different backgrounds. She has worked with children as young as middle schoolers to adults who are studying at universities. April has also had the chance to see what life is like for people at both ends of the spectrum in terms of economics. This exposure to a variety of different situations has really helped April advise people from all types of backgrounds. She is inspired by helping people grow and learn from their experiences, ultimately to live a happy, healthy, and mindful life.
April's previous experience includes working with an organization called DYLN (Delaware Youth Leadership Network) where she worked as a Program Director. April spent her time at DYLN designing programs that fostered to the individual, helping to enhance their personal and professional skills. She was responsible for managing partenrships with eight other Delaware organizations that hosted internships for highschool seniors. She also was part of a program at the University of Delaware called Summer Founders. Here, April founded a startup to equip students with emotional intelligence and community organizing skills!
Role/Interest in UP Cycle Design
There is a strong association between social impact and sustainability. This sparked April's interest in getting involved with UP Cycle Design. She shared when she is in the position to help someone else she always tries to figure out the deepest root cause to the problem. In many cases the root cause can be linked back to some type of broad term. Whether that be poverty, racism, or... the environment. Once April saw the connections between each of these major issues she wanted to be part of the change. She says that it wasn't until after spending a few years in college that she realized she wanted to start thinking about sustainability for her personal life, which then turned into thinking about sustainability for the community as well!
Social Impact
The goal is to simply make an impact. April has a strong interest in helping to resolve social problems such as racism and poverty through social impact work. She has a keen eye for working from the ground up - or finding the root cause of issues instead of just scraping away at the surface. Since working with UP Cycle Design April has been able to see connections between sustainability movements and social movements such as anti-racism and anti-poverty. In the future she hopes to possibly have her own startup where she helps to consult young people from all backgrounds on their endeavors towards starting small ventures!
Advice
Have patience! Patience plays a very important role in progress. Patience plays a very important role in success. Take your time and make sure you are doing things correctly. What's the rush?
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