Kai Abreu: 09/05/2025
In the words of Taylor Allison Swift, “August slipped away into a moment in time.” As the long, hot summer days at the lake turn into cozy fall nights, my time at Swim Drink Fish comes to an end. To be completely honest — I’m bummed: well, and truly, might-eat-ice-cream-and-sob-sing-along-to-Frozen bummed. However, I am also incredibly grateful. This experience has been so wonderful, so cherished, that I will grieve the loss of it. I think there’s something lucky about loving something so much that losing it hurts your heart just a little bit.
And no, I am not just going to miss the flexibility of being able to work in my little digital gremlin cave at home (although that heals my introverted nature) — I’m going to miss what this work meant to me. As someone privileged to have lived a childhood of swimming in the Caribbean Sea, water, to me, represents so much. It’s a symbol of home, a living repository of happy memories with family and friends, a protector and life-giver, and even a friend— a place to find peace and solace. So, working with a group of people so passionate about protecting our waters, a group of people brave enough to envision a world where we all have access to clean, safe water for swimming, drinking, and fishing, has been deeply gratifying. Thank you to everyone at Swim Drink Fish for inviting me to join this powerful movement.
Thank you to Greg and Mark, our fearless leaders who live, breathe, eat and probably dream about the mission every day.
Thank you to Jen, for leading the comms team through chaos, success, confusion, and laughter to bring the mission to life.
Thank you to Sandy, our organizational wizard. Your positivity and passion for team building and helping others is truly inspiring.
Thank you to #RealScientistHeather for being my fact-checking, content creation buddy. I’ve loved learning so much about our Great Lakes ecosystem and all the cool animals that we share the land with from you.
Thank you to Megan for being the program's ring leader that kept all our teams working together seamlessly — Timbit heated debates aside.
Thank you to Grace for the laughs and for being the social media content hypewoman. No matter what I created, I could always count on at least one person liking it. May all content creators find a hypewoman like you.
Thank you to Henry for bringing such passion to our advocacy work. I never thought I would know so much about environmental law. I don’t know how you can keep so much information in your head. It’s a superpower.
Thank you to the West Coast team for everything that you do out in BC to advance our mission, for the laughs, and for keeping Jen on her toes. I’m glad we didn’t need the insurance.
Thank you to the rest of our summer staff: Krisiga, Hardik, Kyle, and Whadia. I’m grateful I got to see so many sides of our mission thanks to you – from water monitoring and community work to systems automation. I hope you all continue to be such bright lights fighting for the future of our waters.
Thank you to those I didn’t work with directly: Bryan, Carol, Lauren, and Alison. Our paths may not have crossed very often, but I know you pour so much passion and hard work into bringing our mission to life.
Finally, thank you to the coolest boss in the world – Danica. I’ve loved working with you, even if, up until the very last week, you were just four blurry pixels on my computer. Thank you for everything you’ve taught me, for indulging my Taylor Swift-themed content pieces, and for always making me feel like a valued part of the team.
This group of people have been a shining light of hope in a world where climate challenges hurting our waters (and everything else) often make everything feel so heavy and look so dark. So, for those like me who sometimes see our suffering planet and can’t help feeling a little lost and a lot hopeless, know that there are good people, brilliant, strong, passionate people, fighting tirelessly to make things better.
It seems fitting to end this with one more T Swift shout out, so here it goes:
Long live the walls we crashed through
How the kingdom lights shined just for me and you
I was screaming, "Long live all the magic we made"
And bring on all the pretenders, I'm not afraid
Long live all the mountains we moved
I had the time of my life fighting dragons with you
I was screaming, "Long live that look on your face"
And bring on all the pretenders
One day we will be remembered
Long Live - Speak Now - Taylor Swift
Some of the Swim Drink Fish team: Left to Right: Kyle, Danica, Greg, Sandy, Kai, Megan, Heather, Grace, Whadia, and Krisiga.
