Hey everybody!  I’m Mariah Geiger and I am beyond thrilled to introduce myself as Catalyst’s new intern.  Hopefully I’ll be able to connect with you in person at an event or training in the near future.  Whether or not that works out, I am also really looking forward to having my own editorial blog, right here, at least once a week, and I hope you will follow me as I explore issues of health in our community.  Some of them will be familiar, some of them brand new.  I hope I can give some insight into all of the amazing stuff that is happening in the public heath realm at this crucial time.  In addition, I hope to provide insight based on my youth leadership experience, and some occasional humor, of course.

Before we begin, I think it would be helpful and cool if you knew a few things about me-

#1) I am a First-Year at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota.  I absolutely love it here, and there are lots of ways I am getting involved in public health issues on campus, and I will definitely be sharing those with you!

#2) I have been on the Catalyst Youth Board since Catalyst’s foundation.  This means that Andy saw me go through my awkward early high school years and he STILL wanted to keep me around.  Seriously, though, I have grown so much in leadership through Catalyst, and I am forever grateful.

This is me, in 2007 at the first Catalyst youth board training.

#3) When Catalyst began, it was a program fighting the tobacco industry.  I must admit, I still have a passion for anything anti-Big Tobacco, and if anything in that realm is relevant as I blog, I will definitely be mentioning it.  However, great strides have been made against the tobacco industry in recent years, and fighting obesity is a huge deal in public health right now.  I am excited to make any difference we can.

This is me at the first Catalyst summit in 2007. 

#4) I am a public policy nerd.  As an artist (specifically a performing artist and writer), I also love to get up and make a lot of noise and use guerilla art at an activism event to get our message across.  However, there is nothing like making political strides for me because that shows permanent, tangible change that I was a part of. 

#5) I am that girl in the “Fall in Love with Fruits and Vegetables”  video.   Yep.  I don’t look like that at all anymore, and it was in fact, one of my first endeavors into Catalyst’s healthy food movement.   It is still one of my favorite Catalyst memories, and if you haven’t seen it yet, it will bring a smile to your day. 

Mariah’s Quotation of the Week- (I will be seeking to inspire, call attention to an important issue, or cause a laugh with these each week.  Ideally, I will keep with the themes of public health and leadership for these, but you never know what could happen.)

If you think you can do a thing or that you cannot do a thing, in either case you are right.
- Henry Ford

Go for it this week, you guys!  

<3 and :)s,
Mariah Kate

• Mariah Geiger