Six Clinton School students traveled to New York City this past weekend to serve as volunteers at the 8th annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting. This year’s theme was “Designing for Impact.”
Aimed at addressing some of today’s greatest challenges and turning ideas into action, the Clinton Global Initiative “convenes a community of global leaders to forge solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.” Since it’s founding in 2005, CGI has “brought together more than 150 heads of state, 20 Nobel Prize laureates, and hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations and NGOs, major philanthropists, and members of the media,” according to its website.
Each year, a group of Clinton School students serves as volunteers at the event. This year’s participants included: Maggie Carroll, Laura Crosby, Gina Lopez, Papy Muntumosi, Rebecca Scissors and Sydney Shearer. In addition, two Clinton School alumni, Spencer Lucker and Mike Townsend, came back to the meeting to volunteer.
Clinton School volunteers served on both the Head of State and Seating Foundations committees. These high-access committees allowed students to take on increased levels of responsibility at the meeting. Students were responsible for registering and seating former and current heads of state, as well as high-level government officials.
Students were also able to sit in on sessions featuring remarks from President Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Governor Mitt Romney, and President Barack Obama. Student Gina Lopez reflected on the experience by saying, “It is truly a rare form of cross-sector collaboration that is not visible every day.”
*This post was written by Clinton School student Sydney Shearer.
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