Studying Education to being #ICANHELP’s Intern Coordinator

#ICANHELP is excited to announce our first student board member, Alexa Negrete! Alexa is a sophomore at Northern Arizona University, studying Early Childhood Education/ Specialty Early Childhood Education with a Psychology minor. Alexa's interests involve education and supporting her community, so she works closely with students and has been an active volunteer with #ICANHELP.

Alexa has a long history of working with ICANHELP. During her 7th grade, she was recognized #ICANHELP for her effort to co-create an anonymous account called Britow Compliments to highlight the positive features of every student in her class. Her efforts led her to be a Digital4Good winner, prompting her journey of working with #ICANHELP. When Alexa started to work for #ICANHELP, she said she "was welcomed into a community of students and mentors who shared interest in recognizing students for using the internet for good."

#ICANHELP's mission of educating students to use the internet for good is what drew Alexa's interest to work with #ICANHELP, especially when she witnessed a time when virtual bullying was at its peak. Alexa worked as a digital media intern with #ICANHELP and now works as Intern Coordinator, where she brings a lot of insight to enrich the organization with her role. She has helped heavily with the curriculum building and discussions on social media within this role.

One of the ways Alexa wants to contribute as a way of her new title is by keeping up with cultural trends and current issues so she and her team can find ways to prevent them from affecting her community. Alexa's awareness of cultural trends has helped #ICANHELP immensely as she's been able to provide the organization with judgment and work on ways to educate students on the matter. Another goal of Alexa's is to build a network with companies to collaborate on projects for #ICANHELP. Alexa has built relationships with companies such as Salesforce, Twitter, and Flipgrid, so she realizes the importance of these relationships with companies as both parties can provide insightful approaches to advance their goals. 

Since working with #ICANHELP, Alexa has recognized the importance of Gen-z, where students have the power to discuss using the internet for good. As a result, Alexa actively encourages students to dream big and work through the process towards those dreams. 

We're so appreciative to have Alexa on our team to help make the digital world a positive place. Students in these positions allow organizations to hear from the perspective of their worlds. And the benefits that it brings to an organization are tremendous, especially when #ICANHELP is a student-focused organization.