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College of Natural Resources
Forestry and Environmental Resources

Amanda Jones: Learn How to Handle Awkwardness Quickly

May 30, 2025

Have you ever wanted to overcome your fear of rejection? Have you ever felt like you needed to yell at strangers? How good are you at having people lie to you? Well, look around for career paths no further! Come work with us on an advocacy campaign.

My name is Amanda Jones, and I had the privilege and opportunity to work with NCPIRG, a student-led grassroots group! NCPIRG is the North Carolina chapter of PIRG, a group that has been around since the 70’s and has now created groups into 25 different states. PIRG stands for Public Interest Research Group and has been working to promote advocacy and research on multiple topics throughout the nation. They work on signature and donation campaigns to help our waters, pollution problems, plastics, pesticides, and more. They take research that is up and coming and bring it to the public, and usually through grassroot campaigns can make a difference. They are mainly inspired to help the environment and tend to use students and social media to help make their campaigns more successful.

This semester, we ran a campaign called Waste is Out of Fashion, where we are discussing with the public (mainly starting with students) about the dangers of fast fashion. We ask the students on their way to classes if they would like to sign our petition and hear more about our group. We also ask students to volunteer or to join our campaign, maybe even reposting about us on social media. As rewarding as it is to truly feel like you’re making a difference, it can be extremely awkward.

Here is a picture of two of my awesome volunteers running our signature table. We request a table from the University Activities Board for a certain day and time, and they will set up a table for us in our designated location. We then decorate our table with welcoming signs, free goodies (such as the pens and stickers shown!) and our petition board. When students walk by, we will ask “Would you like to sign a petition to save the environment?”

Students are busy and interrupting them on their way can be frustrating, especially when they just say, “no thanks”, or the good one “I’ll come back later!”. Honestly, though, if I was in their shoes and I had just ordered a chicken strips combo from Tuffy’s, I might also make some excuse to pass by. But being in this position, it can be a little disheartening, when all I am trying to do is make a difference in the world. When you do get someone who is willing to listen and even discuss who we are and how they can get involved, it all makes the awkwardness worth it. And you make some good connections too!

The absolute best part of my internship are the local community projects we do. I have been planning and getting together with multiple members of the Wolfpack community that I never would have gotten the chance to get their insight before. One, for example, is this mending workshop that I am hosting. As I am planning the date, where it will be, who will be there, and all the little nitty gritty details, I realized that I needed a person who knew how to mend. I can sew and crochet, but good quality mending on multiple different fabrics and stitches is not my speed. So, I reached out to the textiles department on campus. I emailed almost everyone I could to see if they knew a person who would be willing to teach this class. Unfortunately, a lot of the emails I got were, again, rejections. Several of the people I emailed happened to be support staff or in the hiring department of the college and had no actual textile training. But I was able to get a couple that led me to the person who was extremely willing to lead my class. Talking to her and those couple of people was like a breath of fresh air. They were also extremely supportive of our movement to create sustainable fashion practices in the textile industry. My only issue is that my event has been advertised with printed flyers, on social media, on our volunteer group message, and even on virtual flyer boards at NC State. And I have no one signed up to attend.

As you can see, grassroots advocacy movements can be tiresome and awkward processes, where you do not see quickly where your donation money or signatures are going immediately. You often will probably not see how your signature helps, because litigation and legal processes take time. Doing events and meeting with people in your local community is much more rewarding, and you can see right in front of you how this is helping sustainable development, even if no one shows up. Every clothing item that we can save makes a difference. Every signature we add to our petition makes a difference.

While this semester is wrapping up, I am brainstorming all the way that I can bring this internship experience with me in the future. I am going to be more proactive about petitioning, grassroots petitioning, and even more advocacy for the things that I believe in. There are always ways to get involved with the multiple issues facing environmentalism in our country and all over the world. And if there is something that really tugs on my heartstrings, I know how to plan an event and get some attention through posters, social media, and more. I will also be less afraid of rejection and more confident in my abilities to make a difference in this world. I am so thankful for the opportunity I had this last semester of my undergrad degree, and I hope I find a job that works similarly.