My name is Mary Imre and I am one of the Summer Fellows with The Columbus Foundation this summer. I am placed with Serving Our Neighbors (SON) Ministries – an organization dedicated to combating poverty in the Hilliard area through various programs. SON Ministries provides a free summer lunch camp to children in the Hilliard area every summer where they can come to receive a healthy meal and build positive relationships. Though this is my first summer as a Fellow, this is not my first summer with SON. After working though my first week, I realized that my previous work with the organization lead me to create ideas and comparisons that I would need closure from if I want to have a successful and fruitful summer experience.

As a masters candidate in social work at The Ohio State University, I was required to do a “field placement” during my first year of graduate school. With no direction or idea of what I wanted to do in life, I was placed with SON Ministries for my field placement. Though I did not know what to expect, I can say that my placement was life altering. After my term was completed, SON Ministries hired me in the summer of 2018 as a “green shirt,” meaning I would be a seasonal staff member who served as a camp counselor. Though I could write pages upon pages about how impactful, fun, and memorable my experience was, I will simply summarize it as the best summer of my life.

I knew my time with SON Ministries wasn’t over when I left on that last day of camp. I maintained volunteer hours throughout the year and stumbled upon an application for the Columbus Foundation’s Summer Fellowship Program; SON Ministries was one of the sites selected to receive a fellow. Fast forward to today, after I was selected as SON Ministries’ fellow and have started my first week. Now that it’s the end of the first week, I realized that I subconsciously built biases of how my experience should happen this summer.

After last summer, I came into my fellowship excited to reunite with my favorite campers. I also built the idea in my mind that there is no way any other group of campers could be as amazing as the children I worked with last summer. It only took minutes on the first day this week to realize that these ideas were harmful to both myself and the new campers I will meet this summer. Since I will be in more of a marketing position as a fellow rather than a camp counselor, I won’t have the same responsibilities that allowed me to build such amazing relationships. This doesn’t mean in any way that I won’t build incredible relationships, but it means that I won’t be with the same group of children every day for seven weeks. This week has forced me out of my comfort zone and into deep self-reflection. I realized that if I want to have a successful and enriching summer, the only obstacle was my likelihood to compare my time to last summer. This obstacle would also hinder my ability to fully engage with new children the way I should. Comparisons in this setting are useless – each child is unique and cannot be compared to the children I came to love last summer. Comparisons would only prevent me from seeing each child’s talents and gifts.

The obstacle of comparison will likely be something I have to reflect on and check myself weekly, if not daily. However, the acceptance and devotion to working through internal biases about experiences will only help me grow and thrive in my new position. I am so excited to give my time to an organization that I love for another summer and experience it from a new perspective. Finally, I am so excited to share it with my friends, family, and colleagues that follow my story.