Hi All,

I am wrapping up my fifth week with Huckleberry House! This week I dived into part one of the big project I mentioned I will be working on for the rest of the summer (i.e., updating and expanding Huck House’s Safe Place program). So, this week I got started on the updating part by assessing what needs to be revamped in the training manual and reaching out to the over 130 business and organizations in Central Ohio that partner with Huck House to provide youth ages 12-17 with safe places they can go, from which Huck House will arrange for them to safely get to the Crisis Shelter.

The latter involved lots, and I do mean lots, of phone calls (and even some emails) to our current partners to asses wether they had all the proper Safe Place signage and materials or not and wether they would like additional training or not. Now that I have reached out to all but a few current partners, I plan to order and start distributing Safe Place signage and materials to partner sites that need them next week. Then, later, once the training manual is updated, I’ll connect the partners that requested additional training with Melanie, the Director who does all the Safe Place partner trainings

Lastly, in between all these phone calls (and emails), I got about halfway through a side project Carol gave me — she is the Director of Advancement and my Supervisor. Specifically, she wanted me to update Huck House’s Case for Support, which, for those who don’t know, is a document crucial to grantwriting and fundraising as it outlines why a donor should support a particular nonprofit or project. While I must admit it was rather depressing to look up recent data on youth homelessness at the local, state, and national levels, I am glad to be using the research skills have I developed over the last six years in higher ed to convey just how needed Huck House’s programming is for youth in crisis.

Till next week,
Emoni

P.S. Happy 4th of July!