Hello everyone! My name is Abbi Hile and I am entering my final year at the University of Dayton majoring in Political Science with a minor in Communications. I’m excited to be a Summer Fellow for The Columbus Foundation this summer!

This past week was my first full week at Seeds of Caring, which is an organization that engages children into making a difference and choosing kindness through a variety of service projects and educational opportunities concerning needs within the Columbus community. Their mission is to empower kids to create a kinder community with their hearts, hands, and minds.

Last week I was able to start early due to some conflicts later in the summer. Last week I was learning the basics around the office, and I was able to get to know some of great women who are on staff here.

During my time at Seeds of Caring, I will be taking advantage of all the different opportunities that I have to learn about not only the organization itself, but nonprofits in general. I have already been able to sit in on a 1 on 1 staff meeting regarding marketing strategies, an all-staff meeting concerning what was currently going on with each staff member’s role, as well as a board committee meeting touching on the future of the organization.

My main role at Seeds of Caring is acting as one of the instructors for the Kindness Corps, which is a program held during the summer & school year that teaches kids to choose kindness every day. We will be going into summer camps during these 10 weeks, and we will be teaching kids 4 lessons pertaining to community needs in Columbus. These lessons include tools we can use to choose kindness, senior empathy, hope for hospitalized kids, and hunger in those who are unhoused.

Even though I don’t come from a teaching or education background, teaching kids about these needs in our community was important to me when I learned about what I’ll be doing this summer. There is so much we can do to help these communities but showing kids that they can make a difference and that they can bring some hope to people who have these needs is very impactful.

Today (Friday), kids came into our space so we, the Kindness Corps instructors, could practice our lessons in real time. I was very nervous, but as I was leading the lesson I found that teaching the curriculum was easier than I thought, which gave me confidence for the rest of the summer.

This week has been filled with learning the curriculum for Kindness Corps and practicing how we want to teach these lessons. I feel a little nervous to start teaching, but the staff at Seeds of Caring has been so helpful in encouraging me and they have given me great tools to ensure that I am able to get these important messages out to the kids we will be visiting this summer.

I’m so excited to get started with our first week of camp next week!