Volunteering for the Harry Potter Alliance at university

The Harry Potter Alliance is an organization that is based around the Harry Potter books and messages in the theories, such as the power of love and friendship.

Harry Potter tackles things such as slavery (house elves are slaves), loss (Harry lost his parents, Sirius, and Dumbledore), bullies (dealing with Malfoy and his cronies), love (Harry’s mom died for him – also sacrifice), sacrifice (Harry was willing to die for his friends, family, and everyone else), political corruption (the Ministry of Magic has problems), dealing with depression (the Dementor’s) and so much more.

Harry Potter meant so much to me growing up. I have read all of the books so many times that my copy of The Goblet of Fire is falling a part. I know that I am a Ravenclaw, and Hermione in particular was a role model for me.

It absolutely made my day when I found out that one of my friends had started a chapter of the Harry Potter Alliance at my university. She told me to come to the Yule Ball, which was a ton of fun.

The next year was my final year of university and the Harry Potter Alliance was hiring new executives. I knew I wanted to be in PR at this point, so off I went to become the new PR executive for the club.

I was responsible for sending out newsletters and Facebook updates for the club, designing student engagement campaigns, and making sure that we had a good turn out for our events. I would keep track of how much we made for events and how our social media accounts were doing. I also had to make sure that everyone was happy with us, like we had to abide by certain school rules amongst other things.

I loved the Harry Potter Alliance. It’s probably one of my favourite things to tell people that I have done because it was so much fun. Realistically, how many times in my life will I A) get to work in PR while B) doing good for the world and C) TALKING ABOUT HARRY POTTER AND USING THE SERIES ALL THE TIME!!!! The series is so important to me and it meant so much to be able to use that in a real life situation. It was such an amazing trifecta in my mind and I would love to create similar experiences for myself or other young people. It doesn’t even have to be the Harry Potter Alliance or anything related to Harry Potter (although I would love it if it could be!) For me, the Harry Potter Alliance is a symbol of always believing that something is possible.