Student Stories: Past Award Recipients

Carrie Stellpflug
Monona Grove High School
2001 Scholarship Recipient
I have recently made my way back to Madison after living for 5 years in Washington state. My first year there I participated in an environmentally-focused Americorps program. The following years I attended the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. I got a liberal arts degree with an emphasis in sustainable food systems and Latin American studies. Social justice has continued to be central in my life and was a large part of my studies in college.

In high school, I felt a great need for my organizing work to center around identity issues, but later I found myself in a more accepting and open environment that allowed me the freedom to expand my focus. I think my identity-based organizing work in high school served as a jumping off point for me. In my studies in college, I began to recognize some of the possible limitations of only organizing around identity issues and felt compelled to look into various organizing strategies and ways of integrating issues. While the LGBT movement has remained important to me, my social justice work has shifted to focus more directly on issues surrounding hunger, poverty and globalization.

Both in Washington and in Wisconsin, I have been involved in the struggle for domestic partner rights and benefits. I plan to continue being involved in the LGBT movement and finding ways to integrate it into any organizing work in which I am involved.