Hello!

My name is Michaela Master, I’ll be entering my fourth and final year at Ohio State in the fall to get my degree in Environment, Economy, Development, and Sustainability (EEDS), and a minor in City and Regional Planning. This is a multidisciplinary program in the School of Environment and Natural Resources that features economics, policy analysis, community development, business theory, and general systems thinking on environmental, economic, and social issues. Sustainability isn’t about making the world greener – it’s about understanding how our social systems fit within our ecological systems, and how to strengthen both for the wellbeing of all life on our plant.

For the next 10 weeks, I’ll be interning with Local Matters, a nonprofit whose mission is to create healthy communities through food education, access, and advocacy. This will result in a long-term goal of equitable access to a sustainable food system and a community free of food-related chronic disease. There are a TON of amazing programs that Local Matters oversees to make this vision a reality: engagement with people who are young, old, sick, healthy, well off, impoverished, you name it! Through Local Matters, people are empowered to eat healthily, affordably, and deliciously – thus nourishing the mind, body, and spirit. I’ve spent the majority of my week wrapping my head around all the ways that the organization touches the community through their wide variety of programming, which occurs mostly in Columbus as well as a few satellite locations throughout the region.

My main project while at Local Matters will consist of consolidating and optimizing their storage and organization of program evaluation data. This need is multifold: the grant writing process relies on this data to prove the impact of programs (and thus the need for further funding); the program coordinators need this data to continuously improve the execution of the curriculum, rather than solely reflecting after students graduate from the classes; and the organization leadership needs to have a better general idea of where the strengths and weaknesses of the programming are. I’m working to create a dashboard that will be used for all of these purposes, which will enhance the overall efficiency of the organization and thus allow more time and resources for serving the community.

Week 1 was all about keeping my eyes wide open and absorbing all that I could about Local Matters – I cannot wait to utilize this understanding through my work this summer and contribute to such an incredible organization!