Spencer McKenzie (he/him) – Spencer is an environmental steward who is deeply passionate about integrating environmentalism into his student leadership at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is new to the VYCC community and is excited to join such a close-knit community of people who are deeply passionate about conservation, environmental education, and spending time in the natural world! His environmental science and English majors have prepared Spencer to serve as one of Wake’s Environmental Justice Directors, for which he works closely with members of the Winston-Salem community and uses an intersectional approach to advocate for environmental justice within North Carolina. Spencer enjoys spending his free time hiking around North Carolina, reading Toni Morrison, and working in his pottery studio while listening to Maggie Rogers. As a crew leader, Spencer is super excited to work in a new environment, meet some awesome people, and hopefully have a fantastic summer! 

Julia Narhi-Martinez (they/them) – Julia is joining VYCC for the first time this season before completing their senior year at Ohio State University. Originally from a second generation immigrant family in Iowa, Julia cultivated a passion for the outdoors to pursue degrees in Evolution & Ecology and Spanish. At OSU, Julia became exceptionally driven to work outdoors to restore and maintain a healthy ecosystem in the tropics or deciduous forests. On the weekends, Julia loves to level up their gardening and baking skills (in Sims and IRL) and has a lifetime goal to visit every National Park in the US. They were drawn to VYCC’s emphasis on gaining knowledge from the land and are excited to learn from the variety of projects this season, as well as gain insight from the rest of the Queer Crew!