May 2, 2025
My experience interning at CPAWS Manitoba
Brendan Labarre, Communications Intern
From the moment Brendan joined our team, he fit right in — smart, capable, hardworking, and always up for a challenge. In just three short weeks, he brought fresh ideas, a sharp eye for design, and a great sense of humour to everything he worked on.
Check out Brendan’s blog post about his time interning with us at CPAWS Manitoba. He captured the spirit of our team — and our bathroom posters — perfectly. 💚
Three weeks is not a lot of time, unless you’re a carton of milk or handcuffed to another person. Thankfully, I’m neither, I’m Brendan, and I’ve been the communications intern for CPAWS Manitoba for the past three weeks.
“Brendan is so good at communicating about parks and the wilderness. Everytime a park or wilderness needs some information out there, Brendan sure can do it” – Katie (Probably).
What I Did:
My main responsibilities at CPAWS were creating promotional material for our upcoming Ocean Week event and creating the concept of our Pride Parade 2025 float. These two tasks, along with other jobs that came up, allowed me to use my skills in writing, marketing, and graphic design in a professional setting. If you see any upcoming social media posts about the ocean, there’s a good chance that’s my writing!
“If I were in the business of hiring emerging communications professionals, I’d go to brendanlabarre.ca and look at Brendan’s portfolio” – Chelsea (probably)
A very cool moment of my internship was Earth Day. I watched my coworkers share their passion on the CTV morning News, and we visited Manitoba’s Legislative Building for an announcement about $2 million of additional funding to local non-profits fighting climate change. While CPAWS Manitoba wasn’t a recipient of the funding, the announcement was a reminder of the importance of our work in conservation.
CPAWS Passion:
While I loved being able to use the skills I learned in Red River College’s Creative Communication program, a huge takeaway from my time at CPAWS Manitoba is the staff’s passion for nature.
It seemed like everyday, I would come home with new random information about nature. Did you know many species of frogs just freeze during the winter? I didn’t, but at CPAWS Manitoba, this kind of information just floats around the office and bathroom (The whole bathroom is lined with posters listing information about animals, it’s so on brand).
I also had the opportunity to learn about CPAWS Manitoba’s operations.
Before my internship, I knew CPAWS as a booth that was sometimes set up at my college’s campus and assumed their sole purpose was raising funds to protect the environment. They definitely do that, but they also work extremely hard to build a community of like-minded people. They host events that bring like-minded individuals together, like group hikes, paddling nights, and special experiences like our Ocean Week event (coming soon).
Conclusion:
I’m extremely thankful for my time interning at CPAWS Manitoba. It was a great opportunity to do something outside of my area of expertise. It helped me grow as a communicator, and I hope I provided value to the organization.
Check out My Work with CPAWS:
- Ocean Event Teaser-Video
- Wildlife Wednesday-Post
- CPAWS’ Favourite Nature Activity-Video
- CPAWS’ Favourite Provincial Park-Video
- CPAWS Pride 2025 Float-Visit the event to see!