I started this week overwhelmed by how fast time has flown by working at the King Arts Complex. The days seem to blur together, each being a continuation of one another as I’ve fallen into a daily routine. Although the comfort of predicting what the next day will bring has been great, I decided to follow the lead of the other fellows and have another meeting with my supervisor about how the second half of my fellowship could be spent the most efficient.

The conversation we had was nothing short of heartfelt. Hearing more about the genesis of the King Arts Complex and how it has evolved over the years was enlightening and added context to the needs that I have been assessing over the past few weeks. After talking about the past, I asked about the future. I wanted to know what I could do to help add to the legacy of a Complex that is so rich in culture and history. Apparently, this was all my supervisor needed to hear in order to let her imagination run wild. She talked about her hopes for the Complex and her desire to start more programs for youth in the community. I matched her enthusiasm on the topic and our conversation morphed into a think tank, creating innovative ideas that stretched the current framework of the programs that already exist.

Moving forward, I am excited to my start my work on developing programming for middle school and high school-aged youth. After a conversation with a few of my coworkers who are also interested in youth programming, my passion was reignited. I started reaching out to people I know to help start these new projects. I now realize that I needed to get into a routine for the first few weeks of this fellowship in order to understand how the Complex operates as an organization. I really enjoyed the first half of my time at The King Arts Complex and look forward to the sustainable changes I can help make in the future.