Grew up in Newark, New Jersey. Well actually Irvington, but it is technically part of the Newark city sprawl. Then the Jersey shore during my teen years. Then grew a love for nature and wanted to be surrounded by it. So I now live and go to college in a small rural town in down east Maine with a population less than 2k. There is more moose, deer, and coyotes than people - gotta love that.

I think my love for nature stems from being from a big city and then Manhattans insane sprawl. Seeing all the garbage along the Garden State Parkway and I-95 and, well, everywhere really. Plastic bags in trees and McDonald's wrappers stuck on fences and bushes and such. I realized how badly humans are messing up the planet and it sparked the activist in me. Even though as a child growing up in the hood (literally a poop-shoot hole) and not having a backyard and outside play time was restricted to a park after my parents worked and before sunset. It molded me, and I am thankful I was exposed to the big inner city life.