The pace of projects is picking up here at RMHC. On Monday, I attended the Joe Mortellaro Golf Classic, one of RMHC’s largest annual fundraising events, not to mention one of the largest golf outings in Central Ohio. Though I’ve overheard colleagues plan, stress, prepare, and joke about the event for weeks in the office, it was exciting to see their work come together into a successful, if sweaty, golf outing.

As I’ve become closer to my colleagues, I feel that we’re generating great ideas with not enough time to finish them before the fellowship ends. For example, I’m working on a grant from the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO) to begin composting at the House. I hope to use the compost in our backyard garden, which I hope to make plans to expand for the following season. However, grant awardees won’t be announced until December 2019, with the project beginning January 2020. I’m cultivating a partnership with a restaurant/catering company/event space, who are interested in creating an elevated Thanksgiving Day meal for the house. I’m helping the family services team create spreadsheets and procedures to track invoices in states where Medicaid helps cover the cost of travel/lodging, but won’t be around to follow up to see if the information is useful. It’s exciting to receive feedback stating that my ideas are worth exploring, I just have to make plans to keep in touch to see them realized.

Yesterday, I sat in on a food access advocacy training session at Mid Ohio Food Bank. The participants included food pantry managers, church leaders, and a former employee at The Department of Jobs and Family Services. As pantry and nonprofit managers voiced their concerns and frustrations over their constituents being denied benefits, the JFS employee explained her experiences working in administration. She said that folks at JFS were overworked and underpaid, that federal agencies would role in new rules or polices without having sound implementation plans, and that there is a culture of meeting application processing quotas rather than making sure that the right decisions were being made for applicants. Yet again, this fellowship has offered me diverse, skill building experiences within RMHC, but also exposure to the perspectives of those in service areas adjacent to Ronald McDonald House Charities.