My eighth week as a Summer Fellow with The Columbus Foundation was a lot of fun and involved plenty of outside adventures!

First, I spent some time visiting the Train Depot Dedication site in Westerville, located at Hanby Park behind the Westerville Public Library. Completed by the City of Westerville in 2012, The Westerville Fund is among the project’s largest donors, contributing $25,000 toward its completion. While there, I captured plenty of footage for a short-form video to support our social media campaign. I’m also in contact with a member of the City of Westerville who will hopefully be able to provide additional context about the project to include in the video.

Next, the Columbus Foundation Fellows had an outing at the Franklin County Fair! Our original date of Tuesday, July 21st had to be pushed back due to bad weather, and rescheduling to Thursday, July 23rd caused some fellows to run into conflicts—but our small but mighty group still had a great time. We grabbed some fair food, and I tried a fried Oreo for the first time despite having attended the State Fair every year of my life! We also managed to convince some reluctant members of the group to brave a few rides. Overall, it was a really enjoyable experience. I had always gone to the State Fair and never realized a fair existed right in my own backyard—and with free parking, easy access, and far smaller crowds, I wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself back there in the future.

Lastly, on Friday, July 25th, I attended the Fourth Friday event hosted by Uptown Westerville Inc.—a community tradition that dates back to July 1999. This is especially relevant to The Westerville Fund given our donations to Uptown Westerville Inc. totaling $23,450. I attended to gather footage for our social media channels and to document the great work being done by nonprofits across Westerville.

Overall, it felt great to get outside this week, and I’m looking forward to finishing my fellowship strong over these final weeks.

Making the most of these final weeks,
Owen