Sarah O'Connell

Sara is the Conservation Coordinator at the Great Outdoors Foundation and an Iowa transplant, living in the Des Moines area since 2019. She started out as a fashion design major attending school in Chicago and took a meandering path before finding her true footing in conservation through the Green Iowa AmeriCorps program. Sara previously managed the Youth Corps program for Polk County Conservation and helped establish a scholarship for students heading into the environmental science field. She loves sharing and learning from everyone's unique experiences and believes there's no one-size-fits-all journey to a career. In her free time, she's usually deep into one of her many hobbies, including gardening, stained glass, collages, and air-dry clay. She also enjoys teaching about herbal medicine and stewardship, and spending time outdoors with her husband and two children.