Sam Wilson, an Atlanta QVS Fellow, is serving with an education nonprofit called the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) as a communications fellow. SEF is an Atlanta based nonprofit with a 150+ year history in advocating for education equity in the southern states. As a communications fellow, Sam has a wide range of responsibilities, such as creating social media posts, helping with news releases, and even writing a blog post for their website.

In November 2021, Sam wrote a blog post about lead poisoning as an issue of education equity. 

“[The] unfortunate reality is that lead exposure is nothing new, and not confined to just one city or area. Lead exposure occurs much too often all around this country, including in schools.  A significant number of American public schools still have lead in their water. This is particularly alarming because of the deleterious impact lead exposure has on children’s health and development…”

– Sam Wilson

 Sam shared some insights about the experience of working with SEF, and as a communications fellow in particular.

“Working in communications involves working with many of the other parts of the organization, which has given me a chance to gain a wide variety of experience and learn more about how a nonprofit operates. This experience has offered me a chance to improve my writing skills in particular, as well as being a wonderful learning opportunity. It’s been very interesting for me to learn about what this organization advocates for and some of the issues today in education equity, as well as how education is tied to other important equity concerns.”

“I learned how a factor which might seem to be unrelated of education, like lead exposure, can effect how well children are able to learn and their opportunities later in life. This is especially alarming considering how this exposure is inequitably distributed, further compounding existing inequalities. This is a very important issue in the US today, and I hope that I can continue to learn about other topics like this during my site placement at SEF. I’m thankful for the ways this placement has helped me learn and grow so far, and I look forward to continuing to see where it will lead.”

More about Sam

Sam (he/him) grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, and attended school at Indiana University Bloomington, where he majored in International Studies with minors in Religious Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures. He studied Chinese for three years, including one semester abroad his junior year in Nanjing, China. He also had the opportunity to travel to Taiwan twice as part of the Taiwan America Student Conference (TASC). Sam’s experience learning about Taiwan and working with students from across both countries in this student-led, multidisciplinary conference proved to be one of the most rewarding experiences of his life. He also participated in a variety of student activities throughout his college career, including orchestra, Taekwondo club, and Oxfam Club, and was able to explore a wide range of classes as well, including art classes such as photography. After graduating, he tried various opportunities, including staying at an organic farm in Florida, before eventually moving to Thailand to teach English, where he lived for over a year and a half. He enjoyed the opportunity to see a new part of the world and learn from new experiences. Other interests and hobbies of his include spending time in nature, sustainability, biking, meditating, drawing, photography, learning foreign languages, and talking with friends.

Sam grew up attending a Quaker church and going to Quaker summer camps, but only in the past few years or so did he become more interested in Quakerism. He is looking forward to more deeply exploring Quakerism and spirituality during his year at QVS. Additionally, he hopes that QVS will help him develop a more in depth understanding of important modern-day issues, such as inequality, and how we can address them. 

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