My name is Karissa Bowley and I have lived in Fondren since the fourth grade (2002). I grew up enjoying the neighborhood a lot--taking walks to the Fondren Beverage Emporium, thrift shopping at multiple stores current and old, going running around the neighborhood, and finding my first job at Sal and Mookies.

I went to college in Memphis studying Philosophy and Sociology and studied abroad in Ghana. Throughout my formal and informal education I have become more and more pre-occupied with the flip side of consumerism in the United States: that "disposable" stuff that we push out of our minds faster than we can throw it "away".

My Passion I am impassioned by the issues caused by throwing "away" whatever we don't immediately need, including (but not limited to) serious environmental problems. Though I keep hearing that Mississippians don't care about such "progressive" issues, my experience shows me many individuals with real power in their communities who DO care and ARE interested in recycling.

My Goal So my goal is to tap into that commonsense feeling that recycling is simply a good practice for expressing care for our environment and our community that lives in it.