This week, I spent a lot of time on Canva creating social media posts. We try to post something every day, so it’s become almost like a daily routine. I haven’t mentioned it much in my blogs, but my skills in Canva have improved a lot. Another thing I haven’t talked about is watering the gardens, which I help with around twice a week. It’s a nice break from my desk and I love the peacefulness of the plants.

A big project I finished this week was remaking the center’s brochure that includes a green infrastructure scavenger hunt. We couldn’t find the original version, so I had to recreate it from scratch on Canva. It was tricky because I had to work on it sideways to make sure it printed right and it definitely hurt my eyes, but it looks almost identical to the original one with a few edits. Sandy and I are still trying to find a better way to work on it that isn’t sideways, but I’m glad we have an editable copy now.

We also had our biweekly meeting with the Columbus Foundation, but this week was virtual. Toshia Safford, the CEO of the Center for Healthy Families, was our guest speaker. She shared emotional stories about the families she works with including some that put her own life in danger. That experience led her to implement a mental health program at her non-profit and she explained how leadership is taking action, not just a position. She emphasized to be non-judgmental and have empathy when it comes to working with clients and just being humans in general. However, something I struggle with sometimes is having too much empathy. A metaphor I like to use is that it is good to be in someone else’s shoes to get a different perspective but not let the shoe become stuck to where their problems consume you. I asked her how she deals with this, and she explained that it takes time to learn how to balance the two and to keep personal boundaries set. She recommended learning about Daniel Coleman’s five components of emotional intelligence, so I am excited to look into that for personal and professional growth.

On Thursday, I went to Burbank Early Childhood School to help with nature programming for preschoolers and two-year-olds. We took them on a bird scavenger hunt, showed them how to use binoculars, played “Birdie Says” (like Simon Says but bird-themed), and sang a bird song. It was surprising that many of these young kids had already used binoculars before.

Lastly, the City of Columbus recently announced a grant for youth-led organizations to work on projects related to the city’s climate action plan. In a meeting, it was decided that I should take the lead because I’m a student at OSU. I reached out to the Society of Ecological Restoration, a club I’m a part of, to see if they’d be interested in using the grant to transform our overgrown green roof. I’m still waiting for a response, and the deadline is coming up on August 2nd. I’m hopeful they’ll get back to me soon because I really want to help write the grant to get some experience in that.

In the meantime, my boss gave me another grant application for a water bottle refill station funded by the Ohio Department of Health. This one was a short 12 question Microsoft form, unlike other extremely detailed grant applications. After getting feedback from my boss, I submitted it, and fingers crossed we get a new water bottle refill station!