Cecilia in the Marin Headlands

Outward Bound was a transformational experience, which I’m sure you hear from alumni often. My high school used to require all freshman to spend a week Outward Bound canoeing in the Florida Everglades’ Thousand Islands.

My transformational moment happened during discord with my canoe mate Jason. I couldn’t swing my canoe around in the face of Gulf gusts to safely pick him up. He fell in freezing water and when he got in the canoe, he screamed at me “you made fun of me in kindergarten for not being able to say the alphabet.”

That was the first time I realized that my words could hurt another person, and that it felt bad to hurt people. The irony of my kindergarten taunting is that Jason was in no way delayed, in fact he was in all APs in high school and now is a Otolaryngologist. And I turned out to have dyslexia.

This experience later grew into an understanding of life’s interconnectedness, and how words and actions can ripple through relationships. Today, I get to help others see how their words and actions affect personal and business relationships as a coach and consultant to entrepreneurs. I do this too in my hobby – writing for Ecouterre, the go-to source for sustainable fashion design, about eco-sustainable fashion designers whose products create welcome ripples in the fashion industry.

You can make an expedition possible for a low-income student by participating in or donating to the City Skyline Challenge!  As Cecilia shared, your gift can make an impact that resonates in a young person’s life for years and decades to come.

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