Our second Partner Profile of 2020 belongs to Mr. Randy Nissen. Read on for some background on the driving force behind one of our larger Clean Your Streams groups!
Randy has his roots in the Toledo area, as he was born here prior to spending his youth in New York. He attended Ohio State University, where he earned a teaching degree that he has put to use for the past 34 years. Randy’s specialized subjects are social studies and history; he began teaching in the Toledo at Woodward High School, but has spent the last 15 years at the Toledo Early College High School (TECHS). It is at TECHS that Randy first became involved with Partners for Clean Streams.
Randy says that a flyer advertising Clean Your Streams (CYS) Day caught his eye while walking through the UT campus. As TECHS students are required to complete a series of community service hours each semester (6 hours/semester), Randy saw the opportunity to connect his students with CYS. The TECHS community service group has been participating in CYS for almost a decade, and usually have one of biggest groups at the event. TECHS’ group was 141 individuals strong at the 2019 CYS (composed of students and their family members). This year, TECHS had their own kickoff location, with the group spanning out to clean 3 separate sites!
Randy has engaged TECHS students in other volunteer opportunities throughout the years as well, including Global Youth Service day, UT’s Big Event, UT Litter Bug, food drives, etc. When asked about the students’ willingness and excitement to participate in service events, Randy stated that even if the TECHS service hour requirement was not in place, he believes that his students would still turn out for these events and that he enjoys working with this great group.
Post-retirement, Randy is certain that he will have not have trouble filling his time. On his docket is travel (Slovenia is top of the list), cycling, wood-working, and reading. And finally, when asked if he envisioned TECHS continuing to participate in CYS after his retirement, Randy gave a strong “YES”. We appreciate the work that volunteers like Randy do to introduce youth to environmental stewardship; thank you!
