Volunteering led to my first job as a designer, a commission to create a coloring book using clowns as characters. The Shriners used the coloring book as a fundraising project. My mentor at the time, Woody, a fellow Mason coding mastermind, helped me turn the photos I took into drawings. The clown deviation was the only part of the Shriners where women were permitted, so I had to join. I did so many cool things with the Shriners; parades, circuses, and hospital visits are just some cool stuff I got to do. 

From there, I co-started my first 501c3 non-profit, Dance Like Noone is Watching (DLKNOW), hosting a yearly gala for disabled people and their families. Of course, DLKNOW needed a website, and who would do it other than me? All the fun and life-changing experiences I have been part of because of the 20 years worth of volunteer work have been excellent; they allowed me to work on skills I now use daily as a UX Designer.

Moving forward, I hope to use my more mature skills to help even more people with better, more innovative UX design like I did with $o$.

$o$ whole design is a UX masterpiece that allows one of our most vulnerable populations, homeless people, to get resources delivered to them. In a safe, natural place. The non-profit sector needs technology to bring them into the 21 century. People like myself and others in tech fields need to spend time giving our talents and creating valuable resources to help at-risk populations—providing access to opportunities not afforded relatively.