Hi everyone, my name is Emily Callahan and I am one of the Summer Fellows for the 2019 Columbus Foundation Summer Fellowship Program! This upcoming summer I will be working with Best Buddies International, helping them to prepare for their annual leadership conference and also in helping them in various ways to better engage the community and increase volunteer initiatives.

I received my undergraduate degree in Social Work, where I spent a lot of time focusing on “macro-level social work,” which included event and program planning, management and evaluation, volunteer coordination, and small policy-related projects. This background in macro-level social work is what made me interested in Best Buddies International, I saw this as being an organization that could not only follow in line with my passion for the nonprofit sector, but also as an organization that would allow me to grow stronger in the skills that will make me a successful actor in a nonprofit organization.

Needless to say, I have been extremely excited to start the Fellowship Program and the various projects that will come with Best Buddies International. This excitement was somewhat stalled, as I spent a majority of my first week completing necessary orientations and trainings for Best Buddies, and sitting in on meetings to get a deeper understanding of how the organization functions.

While the slow start to my fellowship seemed like a bit of a bummer, I started to think about what my expectations were compared to that of my supervisors expectations, and that the trainings were necessary to my success in future projects. Without developing a stronger base of knowledge about the organization, how was I supposed to successfully complete all of what is required of me and meet the standards of my organization? I realized that this fellowship program is fairly short in time, and the week-long trainings were needed in order to make the most out our 9 week long program. I am excited to see how I grow in my role and see the impact that Best Buddies will have on me.