This week I came home from spending the week with my family, and we got right back into the swing of things. It was quite a busy week!

This week was Lesson 3 of our Kindness Corps program in Session 3, and we had multiple summer camps to attend each day. Again, this lesson educates children about hospitalized children. We made banners and activity kits to deliver to Nationwide Children’s Hospital later this week.

Besides camp this week, I have been continuing my efforts in outreach to day care centers in the Columbus area to see if they would be willing to show our brochures in their spaces. I’ve had a few centers say yes to this, so I will be dropping those off at the end of this week and sometime next week as well. These brochures will help to bring in new, young families to Seeds of Caring and to get them engaged with our mission and programming.

I also attended a walk-and-talk meeting about corporate events on Thursday afternoon. We all met at Inniswood Metro Gardens and walked the trails and concluded our meeting at one of the picnic tables nearby. I’ve never had a meeting in this style, but I enjoyed it a ton! I feel like moving around and being outside on a beautiful day, like it was on Thursday, got our brains moving and it felt very productive. I listened in and gained insight on what goes into planning these corporate events.

On top of my time at Seeds of Caring this week, we had a Fellows Learning Session at The Columbus Foundation about advocacy. Listening to the speakers and my peers discuss this topic and what it means for them in their spaces was very insightful. It made me think and ask myself what advocacy means to me, and what passions of mine can move me to advocate for different communities. Advocacy has always been a passion of mine in general, as I have advocated for my sister and others who have rare diseases and for Medicaid in general, so listening this week and soaking in all the information was beneficial for me as it caused me to think about other passions of mine that I can advocate for.

This week felt very busy for myself and my mental health. We’ve talked about burnout as a group at some of the Fellows Learning Sessions and while feeling this a little bit myself, I’m trying to take my own personal self-care into consideration. Taking small breaks to go outside or sit with my dogs for a few minutes has helped me be more productive through this time as well as lessen the amount of stress I put on myself. I’m also taking my evenings and weekends more seriously when it comes to relaxation and giving myself time to rest.

I also was able to attend a board meeting on Tuesday evening I have never been to a board meeting for any organization so getting to listen was very interesting, especially with the content that was discussed. Things are very exciting over here at Seeds of Caring!