We AITT Final Report

This blog post was written by Alana Fisher, a 2025 Marine Plastics Ambassador.

As a Milwaukee native, I have a love-hate relationship with my city. On one hand, as a major city, I think that we have a good ratio of green/blue space to urban space. On the other hand, it is not distributed equally. And that is where I wanted to focus my project around. The term ate (AAVE term - ex: “We ate that”) means that something was done well, perfectly, and/or flawlessly. My goal with the We AITT project is to empower and engage my community in making positive changes through sustainability. I mainly focused on sharing information related to my experience, the harmful impact of pollution on the mind/body, what people can do to advocate for a better tomorrow, and how people can use their own identity to do so.  

A yard sign of the We AITT slogan, “I’m the positive change in my community!” I did this slogan because I believe that when people see this phrase, it will encourage them to either become a positive change or continue to be a positive change in their community! *When you see 414, that represents the area code of Milwaukee (which we take pride in).

‍Project Impact

The impact that I had was less about the numbers but more about the genuine connections I made. Although I did not reach my goals due to personal and academic conflict, the amount of encouragement and support that I have gotten from the wider Wisconsin and MPA community has been great (almost overwhelming). Some of the activities I was able to do were hosting a community cleanup and being able to give away things such as trash pickers, water jug pumps, stickers and yard signs (like the one above).  

Here are a few data points that I want to share:  

  • Instagram followers: 81
  • Instagram Posts: 8
  • Instagram Likes: 200
  • Instagram Eyes/Views: 2,552
  • Email Chain: 25

The email chain was a way that I reached out to people to new and past connections, asking them for support and overall giving them updates. This chain consisted of professors, community organizations, and other professionals in the greater Milwaukee area. A few organizations that I would especially like to highlight (in no specific order): Milwaukee Riverkeepers, Plastic Free MKE, We Got This, The Nature Conservancy (cities program), Milwaukee County Parks, Milwaukee County Libraries, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Natural Resource Foundation of Wisconsin and so much more.  

Flyer for the September 20th neighborhood cleanup. The QR codes link to a resource page, We AITT Instagram (@we_aitt_414), and a survey (which should be reworked).

Future

My future with this project is that I would love to continue with the project (or at least the mission). I enjoy promoting community events, networking with different organizations, and even doing social media (that was the most frustrating part of the project). I think I will do more with social media and content creation. For my community, I would like to create reoccurring small-scale events such as neighborhood walks, cleanups, and stuff swaps. Regardless though, this has been an amazing experience! I felt as though I learned so much more about myself and took very large leaps. I went from crying on my way to D.C. to having the confidence to study abroad in London. I also never would have thought I’d like to do anything with business and now I’m interested in learning how to start my own non-profit or business. Even with the craziness of the world, this project just made me excited for my future and reaffirmed that my public health background is valuable in many different fields.  

Different pictures of 5 participants at the end of the cleanup. I loved to see everyone enjoying themselves!