First week at ECDI

Hello, my name is Joseline (jo-celine) I am a senior public relations and global studies double major at Otterbein University. I am working with ECDI this summer, an organization dedicated to helping small business find funding they otherwise wouldn’t have. 

On my first day I followed John around, the coordinator of the Food Fort. The Food Fort supports food business with two buildings (and one in the process) open to local owners to make and store their products. From Dave’s Artisanal Cheesecakes to Dos Hermanos, the Food Forts are full to the brim of entrepreneurs. Around the perimeter of Foot Forts there are garden beds with vegetables already starting to bloom. One of my main responsibilities at ECDI is to help with the garden along with John and another intern, Arvind. I have to focus on community outreach and overall image of the garden. We met this week to talk about logistics and what we should change from last year. This coming week we set up a meeting with Marketing to talk about details regarding getting signs and banners for the garden. We hope to get the local community involved through volunteering in order to build a relationship between ECDI and the Devon Triangle (and surrounding) neighborhood. In a few weeks we hope to have enough vegetables to start giving them away to the community which happens to be a food desert.

Another part of ECDI is the Women’s Business Center, dedicated to training and supporting women entrepreneurs. My second day I met Lisa and Aminata who trained me on all of the things WBC does. Truly so much goes on in the WBC that I could write a full manual, bounded and everything. I got to sit in on a WBC team meeting where I met the rest of the squad, Edgar, Courtnee, and Patty. Everyone was so kind, genuine, and passionate about their work that I immediately felt a sense of belonging. I was invited to other meetings, one that was particularly interesting was with the Guadalupe Center and Small Business Association, where they discussed the possibility of all three organizations working together to bring business workshops to the Guadalupe Center. I also connected with Edgar, Courtnee, and Patty on an individual basis to ask to shadow them some time in the near future!

When I interviewed with ECDI I expected to be nervous and feel like an impostor because it would be my first real paid job in the field I wanted to work in. But I remember leaving the meeting knowing that I was made not just for the position but to work at ECDI. As this summer approached I became scared again, that maybe I couldn’t handle it, maybe I wasn’t the perfect intern for them. But this week has shown me that the environment at ECDI is perfect for my growth as a professional. Everyone is so open and kind that I feel a sense of belonging which is not a feeling I am very familiar with. I know not everything will be perfect (especially myself) but I know that the people at ECDI care about my success, my learning, and my overall well-being. I am so excited to see what this summer has in store!