Speaking about the impact she has witnessed while working at WE, Shauna said, Being a life-long traveler myself, I was excited to take on the extra opportunity of facilitating ME to WE Trips in addition to my WE Charity role when I first joined WE. I already knew that traveling abroad can be a life-changing experience and was excited to be part of providing that opportunity for others. What I didn’t know at the time was how much more transformative ME to WE Trips can be because of the intention programming and activities that they include. I’ve been lucky enough to not only witness but help facilitate hundreds of youth on their journey of becoming or deepening their roles as global citizens during my six years of facilitating trips. I’ve even watched as the journey of some of the youth on my first trips lead them to roles working for WE.

Reflecting on her experience, Shauna said,

When I switched careers to come work at WE, I found myself in a fast-paced, high energy, supportive environment. This was my first time managing other people, and I saw my team grow from five to 13 staff in just over a year. For me, this meant that my experience at WE included many long days or occasional weekends worked to hit high goals and support my team, quick changes to ideas and directions of some projects or goals, and having to learn as I went and adjust as I grew alongside a rapidly growing organization. What this also meant was that I grew more personally and professionally during my time at WE than in any other job before, and meet incredible humans all over the world forging some of my closest lifelong friendships.

Thinking about what she was most proud to be working on while at WE, Shauna said, In my roles both at WE Charity and ME to WE, I was proud to work on revising and drafting new internal operating policies and procedures that provided efficiencies for different departments working together on shared projects and goals. Outside of my roles, my proudest memory was how much support, through donations of non-perishable food items, I received from staff when I turned my annual office haunted house into a WE Scare Hunger campaign.

Noting what’s changed during her time at WE, Shauna mentioned,

In six years a lot has changed. WE has rebranded a few times, expanded the countries it works in and offers trips to, opened new trip properties abroad, launched WE Days in other countries, opened new retail store locations, expanded its development model into a five-pillar system, relocated and upgraded its head office, and so much more. What has stayed the same is the passions of empowering others to make the world a better place.

Shauna reflected on her most memorable impact of her work, saying,

After many years of being involved with our on-call customer support team for ME to WE Trips, the most memorable impact of my work has been the thank-yous received from travelers and their families for the care, support and time given to help them through unforeseen situations.