Jesse Jewell

Title: Leadership Coordinator & International Trips Facilitator
Interesting Fact: Jesse has had several hair-raising encounters with grizzly bears while living in Alaska. Fortunately, he managed to deter them with firecrackers and a series of “Your fur is so brown…” jokes.

As leadership coordinator and international trip facilitator with Leaders Today, Jesse Jewell’s responsibilities range from leading International Volunteer Trips to facilitating workshops and speeches with incredible youth from all over the world. Jesse recently graduated from Nipissing University with a bachelor of education degree and an honours degree in environmental geography.

Jesse grew up on a small family farm near the village of Kirkfield, Ontario. Due largely to the fact that his family lived happily without electricity during his childhood, Jesse spent his early years exploring the vast expanses of forest and streams surrounding their farm. Farm life wasn’t all flowers and fishing, however. He spent many long summers in dusty fields, picking rocks for five dollars a day, and living in a wooded cabin with his two older brothers. (He even trained his dog Barney to sleep in front of the crack under the door to keep mosquitoes out during the night.) At the age of 15, Jesse developed a case of itchy feet and set out with a friend on a back-packing trip across Europe. He left a boy, and returned…still a boy, but a boy with a solid understanding of the power and freedom of his youth. Since then, he has spent his summers living on a southeast Alaskan island where he feels a strong connection with the natural environment. Alaska’s immense and rugged landscape and generous, open-hearted people are sources of serenity in Jesse’s life, despite several hair-raising encounters with grizzly bears.

It wasn’t until his recent trip to Cameroon, West Africa, where he taught biology to high school students, that Jesse saw the perils of poverty first-hand. Without a doubt, he will tell you that this experience changed his perspective on life. When he’s not busy with Leaders Today, you can find Jesse along a riverbank in a forest, fishing for brook trout or playing music with his friends on his West African djembe.

Email: jesse@leaderstoday.com