Day in the Life of… A Partnerships and Development Manager!

By Kimberly Ng, Project & Communications Coordinator, Sea Smart

We’re starting a new blog series here at Sea Smart! We’ll be highlighting some of the awesome people who work with Sea Smart to gain some insight into all of the roles that help shape our organization. Volunteers, board members, educators, parents, teachers, administrative coordinators, marketing advisors and so many more are crucial to Sea Smart’s continued growth. Consider this an inside scoop on the inner workings of Sea Smart. 

Up first is our Partnerships and Development Manager!

Name: Paloma Corvalan

What do you do at Sea Smart: I’m the Partnerships and Development Manager at Sea Smart. This means that I apply for grants, manage our corporate partnerships, and help grow our ideas from development to implementation. I’m also an environmental educator and deliver our youth and adult programming.

Teaching in action at an elementary school!

What’s your favourite part about working at Sea Smart: I love building partnerships with values-aligned groups. When building these relationships, you find out where your priorities align and think of creative ways that you can reach your goals together. Sea Smart has a small core team that allows us to be nimble and make quick decisions, and we have a huge community of supporters and partners with a diversity of expertise that we can tap into. I love being part of this community and helping it grow stronger and wider.

What does a typical work week look like for you: I deliver workshops 1-2 days a week and spend the rest of the time at the Sea Smart office. We have team meetings twice a week to check up on our progress and to get feedback from others. We’re a small team and often collaborate on projects, as many minds make light work. When applying for grants, I work with other educators to figure out the logistics of our proposed program and with Sea Smart’s editing wizard, Willow, to ensure the final draft is clear and concise. We always have different projects on the go, so there’s never a dull moment!

What volunteering or passion projects do you do outside of work: I am passionate about environmental outreach and STEM education. I volunteer with the David Suzuki Foundation’s Blue Dot and Suzuki Speaks in Schools groups. I strongly believe in Blue Dot’s mandate to have our right to clean air and water be recognized in Canada and the importance of including children and youth in decisions that will impact their future. As the Director of Youth Engagement with the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology (SCWIST), I coordinate a passionate team of outreach coordinators and we empower girls to pursue their love of STEM through hands-on workshops, mentoring programs, and scholarships.

Favourite ocean-friendly tip: I’ve recently rekindled my love for beeswax wraps. I used to wrap food and then forget about it, but now I’ve been wrapping herbs and find that this is a great way to keep them fresh for a long time. Not only am I avoiding using plastic wraps, but I’m also reducing my food waste!

That’s a wrap on Sea Smart’s first Day in the Life blog post! Check back soon to get an inside scoop on some of our other community members and what they do to support Sea Smart and save our oceans.