October 20, 2026
You may already know Cara, or as she’s better known to Grassroots Health, “Godzilla.” She runs our evaluation, meaning she goes out to our middle schools to see how the students are doing and whether our programs are actually working. You may have spotted her on a DC sidewalk somewhere, holding more iPads than one person should be able to carry. The kids treat her like a celebrity. In their world, she is one.
For a long time, Godzilla did all this work on her own, but DC is a big place to traverse by yourself week after week. After a while, her journeys seemed to get lonely. This year we decided she should have a sidekick, and went looking for a friend.
Looking back, we did not write the job posting very carefully, because we never thought to say what kind of creature could apply, and that turned out to matter more than we expected. The interviews were a whole experience, with one candidate spending the entire time asking whether the job came with a moat, and another arriving with a slideshow they had made about us, which we still think about more than we’d like to. Nobody felt right, and we were starting to give up. But then, Junior wandered in.
As far as we can tell, Junior never really applied. They turned up in the waiting area one afternoon, sat down, and waited to be seen, and everyone assumed someone else had booked them, so by the time we worked out that nobody had, we liked them far too much to send them home.
Here’s close to everything we know about them. Junior is from Rock Creek Park, the deep part, “where the wild creatures are,” as they’ll always put it. They won’t tell us how old they are, but they’re very keen for you to know they’re older than the Washington Monument, and they find a way to work this fun fact into every conversation. Godzilla and Junior took to each other right away, in a way no one can really understand (until you see what Junior looks like).
Now the 2 of them do the rounds together, Godzilla out front and Junior a step behind, learning the job one iPad and Tableau table at a time. What Junior actually adds on these visits is hard to put in a report, since mostly they stand near the kids and look reassuring, and somehow that works better than it should, because the kids love them the second they see them, the same way they love Godzilla.
Godzilla has company now, which was the whole idea. And because Junior came to us knowing nothing about how Grassroots Health works, they’ve spent the last few weeks learning it all from scratch, which is exactly what makes them right for the second job we gave them. This winter, Junior will serve as the Grassroots Health Games mascot! From now until the end of the year, they will be the one showing you how our programs really work, learning it right alongside you.
