Logan Barrett
I want to tell you my story
I’ve always prided myself on my ability to help others.
I was born in Atlanta (Smyrna) and raised in Birmingham (Hoover) by a single mother. My ma worked hard to provide a good life for me ever since we were on our own when I was three months old. My dad wasn’t absent from my life by any means, but it was my ma that raised me primarily. When we moved to Birmingham when I was 7 years old, my ma started working at American Cancer Society where we would volunteer just about every other month at various Relay for Life events. This is when I first fell in love with helping others.
From this experience, I transitioned to volunteering with Shelby Humane Society where every weekend I would work to get families to find their newest four-legged member. Sometimes they would put me in the mascot gear for their events. This picture is from a 5k called Paws for the Cause. This is where I learned that dressing as an dog around other dogs isn’t the best idea if you don’t want to get barked at constantly. They also forgot the shoes so it was just a really interesting experience overall. I actually ended up adopting my dog, Keevah Maith Barrett, from Shelby Humane Society the summer before my second year of undergrad.
My next major volunteering experience came when I worked with Alabama Rural Ministry (ARM). With ARM, we worked on helping people living in substandard housing in Lee County. We would do this by fixing any issues with our people’s houses absolutely free of charge so they can make their house feel even more like a home. This was one of the most fulfilling experiences in my life.
I was able to become their public relations officer during undergrad and one of my biggest events during this time was a 5k that I organized. It was called the Home Run 5k and was baseball themed. I’m sure you can see the play on words with that since we worked to fix homes and it was a fundraising run. We got corporate sponsors to help cover the costs of the shirts for the 5k and had several runners and volunteers to make the event successful. Being able to give back to an organization that has given so much to not only the local community, but to me as well, was an amazing experience. It’s from this that I learned that my life’s mission is to help people especially in my local community.
I always want to work for an organization that feels a strong connection to their local community and actively engages with them. I believe that the local community is almost always the primary public of an organization and must always be in consideration when making decisions. I believe in an organization that volunteers at community events whether that’s coworkers volunteering together or its company-mandated. These community values are something I want in an organization that I work for and if that fits your organizations mantra, reach out to me.
I graduated from undergrad in three years (2015-2018) by working hard every single semester including summers. After my freshman year, I took at least 18 hours during Fall and Spring semesters and at least 7 hours each summer including two internships and working at least two jobs at any point. This was mainly because college is expensive and helping my parents by not costing them another year of college was the best thing I could do for them so I did just that. I also found the workload of being a full-time student to be minimal so I wanted more of a challenge. For graduate school, I got a teaching assistantship that paid for my tuition and fees so I only ended up paying less than a grand a semester for my master’s degree. I was given the promotion of lead graduate teaching assistant at the end of my first year. It was with this position that I was able to give back to the community more.
As the lead GTA, one of my many responsibilities was to help organize the semi-annual Phillip Lutzenkirchen Excellence in Public Speaking competition that worked with the Lutzie 43 Foundation to promote safe driving habits. Working with Phillip’s dad, Mike, we awarded $4,300 to the first place winners every semester and had over 1,000 attendees at each competition. This made this position more rewarding to me to see how impactful this competition was on the contestants and on the students that attended the event. I will say that announcing the winners is incredibly stressful and I kept thinking about Steve Harvey announcing the wrong Miss Universe which did not help at all.
Overall, I am a caring and compassionate person that wants my work to have an impact on the community as well as the client. I want to work with an organization that follows this mission and I want to have the opportunity to help my community outside of work as well. I believe that organizations should behave like neighbors to the local community and will work hard to promote this sense of corporate social responsibility. If you are the type of organization to work for your community, I want to join you and I want to help advance you and your goals.