Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

A great piece of artwork at RMHC!

My first week at the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Ohio has been one of the most exhausting and rewarding weeks of my life. I came into this fellowship with a driving passion for the arts and for the nonprofit sector; however I didn’t quite understand the clear impact that just one non-profit organization can make in a community. The Ronald McDonald House is the perfect example of a non-profit that continues to impact the lives of numerous families from around the world. RMHC is the one place in Columbus that acts as a ‘home-away-from-home’ for these families. The reason why this house can make such an impact is due to the countless volunteers that literally ‘run the house’. Approximately 250 housewarming volunteers donate their time to RMHC to make the house act as a full-service ‘hotel’ of sorts and to create a home-like environment. It is because of these volunteers that RMHC will soon become the world’s largest Ronald McDonald, housing the capabilities to comfortably fit 120 families.

The Columbus Foundation

I started my first week as a Summer Fellow at the Carriage House in the Columbus Foundation. This orientation session was a great way to meet the 10 other fellows and to become introduced with Dan Sharpe. Quickly after this session I headed over to the Ronald McDonald House over on 771 East Livingston to start my ten week residency!

I work with Kate Ziegler, the Volunteer Manager, who acts as the person who recruits, recognizes and retains the numerous RMHC volunteers. My main project that I will be working on during the next nine weeks is a Volunteer Stewardship Plan. This plan will hopefully turn the informal structures of recruiting, recognizing and retaining volunteers that are already in place, into a formal and organic structure that will streamline the entire volunteer management process.

RMHC is right across from Nationwide Children’s Hospital

A large part of what this plan will be based of the Donor Stewardship Plan that was just recently created by the Development Director, Angie Hartley. Most of my time spent during this first week has been talking with Angie about the creation of this plan and the processes found within it. Her input has been invaluable in my understanding of what a Stewardship plan should really look like. I have also met the ten other full-time staff members, each of whom explained their role at RMHC and how they might be affected by the Volunteer Stewardship Plan.

This is my new office at RMHC!

I am already extremely excited about creating this plan for RMHC, as I can see exactly how vital volunteers are for the success of the house. Hopefully, streamlining this process will allow the RMHC staff to consistently recognize volunteers that are doing a great job. I cannot wait to see what the next nine weeks have in store but I know that I will be learning so much about myself by helping to build up Columbus’ Home-Away-From-Home.

Eligible – Are you a college Junior, Senior, Graduate Student, or recent graduate that attended a Franklin County college or university, or graduated from a Franklin county high school?

Apply– Online by 2/7/14

Interview– Candidates will be selected by the host organizations for interviews in April.

Serve– The 10-week fellowship starts June 2 and ends Aug 8 2014.

In their own words!
A video highlighting the Summer Fellowship Program.

For the last four years, we’ve partnered with nonprofits that have served as host organizations for a Summer Fellow. Organizations design a full-time, meaningful work experience for the Summer Fellow—and receive a stipend for their operation and oversight of the 10-week program. 

Do you have a meaningful, challenging, and mission-related project that would be great for a Summer Fellow?

Please read about the expectations and requirements, and consider submitting an application by November 8, 2013.

In their own words!
A video highlighting the Summer Fellowship Program.

Today was my last day at Alvis House, and it feels so strange to be leaving. I spent forty hours a week for ten weeks in this office and got to know a lot of interesting, funny, intelligent, and genuinely caring people. Saying goodbye is always really hard; you’re stuck between, 1. Wanting to just hug everyone and tell them, again, how much you REALLY loved meeting them and getting to know them, honestly, and 2. Maintaining professionalism and avoiding over-doing it, to the point where it’s uncomfortable. Luckily, the people that I’ve worked with over the past ten weeks didn’t mind a bit of hugs and sappy goodbyes. They even threw me a little going-away party in the conference room, complete with cupcakes appropriately topped with plastic lambs (a reference to both my last name and the agricultural venture I’m taking on next).

Here’s the panicked mid-fellowship to-do list that I typed at the start of Week 6. Everything on the list has been completed and crossed off (except the writing of this very blog post and a few more goodbyes that need to be said), and that is something that felt like a momentous task when the list was compiled. However, a little bit of focus, planning, and self-imposed deadlines go a long way. All of the research from the summer has been compiled into one giant 220-slide PowerPoint presentation and will be accessible to people throughout Alvis House. I was able to meet with some of the department heads to discuss the implications, and it felt good to know that the information gathered will be helpful when moving forward with programming, etc.

Thank you Alvis House—especially my supervisor, Jennifer, as well as Gloria, April, Arlene, and Denise, the President and CEO—for the amazing experience! And thank you to the Columbus Foundation for the wonderful opportunity as well.

Today was the final closing luncheon for the 2013 Fellowship, and I have to say: it was amazing.

All of the Fellows had been giving each other updates on their projects and what they were experiencing at their organizations throughout the course of the summer, but it was awesome to see the final results and to hear about everyone’s accomplishments. We all worked in such a wide variety of tasks this summer: some ran summer camp activities and planned educational experiences, some helped small businesses get a foot in the door, some facilitated research and archived data, and some coordinated whole systems of volunteers. The Fellowship was a very interesting and insightful experience. My own experience at Alvis House was beyond wonderful in and of itself, but having a network of other Fellows working at other organizations at the same time was very eye-opening as well. I learned a lot about what Columbus has to offer, in terms of nonprofit work and organizations, for-profits and social enterprise, and of course all of the awesome recreational activities—events, restaurants, neighborhood haunts—that make this city unique.

Columbus has treated me very well over the past four years, and I’m so thrilled that I was able to get to know it as well as I have. Even though I am planning on traveling and moving around a bit over the next couple of years, I have a feeling that Columbus will always feel like home. I plan on coming back to visit every chance I get, if not settling down here permanently after I’ve wandered a bit.

So thank you to the Columbus Foundation, again, for the summer. Luckily, my Fellowship hasn’t ended just yet, so I will save my goodbyes to Alvis House for next week!

The first day I sat in the Foundation for orientation, ten weeks stretched out ahead of me. 

And now I am in week ten. Not to be cliche – but I blinked.

I look back over the past few months and could not be more thankful that I spent the past two and a half months with Junior Achievement. I’m not sure what I expected when I first walked into this fellowship, but this summer has been incredible.

From day one, everyone at Junior Achievement pushed me to grow as a professional. I met some incredible people with amazing stories, and was given the privilege of learning from their expertise.

I walk from Junior Achievement  a little bit better informed and with my eyes a little bit more open. This summer has been the summer of ‘community.’ With events like the Casino Night Fundraiser or sitting in on board meetings I have learned how much an entire community are reliant on one another. I’ve seen how a donor can affect an entire program, how a local business can impact a community, and with my summer project: how an education policy affects everything else around it, specifically on a non-profit level.

Thank you Junior Achievement of Central Ohio for including me for a summer and teaching me so much. Whatever my next steps are, I will take a piece of this experience with me – wherever I go.

I don’t know how many times I can sit down to almost write a blog post about Family Night at RELC.  I’ve written 3/4 of a post half a dozen times, but it never quite feels right, so I inevitably scrap it and start over.  Even these first three sentences have been edited four times.  I don’t usually have trouble finding words, which makes this struggle even more perplexing.  I want to write about the most exciting, fulfilling, overwhelming experience of my summer, but I can’t find the words to do so eloquently.

Since this is my first summer with SON Ministries, I’ve never experienced a Family Night before.  I was told that typically there are 20-30 guests and that the evening focuses on a Potluck.  We tried something a little bit different with RELC this year.

The staff knew that Family Night had never been very well attended and they, as well as I, wanted to change that.  Our thought was that if the kids were excited about the evening then the parents would be willing to show up.

We started weeks in advance, letting the kids choose what they were interested in doing for a vague Family Night sometime in the future.  We ended up with four main groups: Sports, Dance, Art and Baking.  Then things progressed.

The sports group created team names, jerseys, new soccer goals from scratch and a new dodgeball game.

The dance group choreographed two original dances to two different songs, each lasting about five minutes (one that included audience participation).

The baking group made chef hats, signs, banners, chocolate covered pretzels, cake balls, cookies, cupcakes, puppy chow and chocolate covered marshmallows (baked goods were frozen during the weeks prior and thawed the evening of the event).

The art group created a box house, a box city, paper mache disco balls, and other miscellaneous crafts.

Like I said, we wanted the kids to want to be there.  They worked for weeks to get everything ready and seemed excited, but we also really wanted to make it a special night for them, too.  So we added a raffle.

The staff created three themed raffle prizes to give away on Family Night.  The kids earned tickets during camp for good behavior and for eating the vegetable of the day (usually carrots).  They also would receive tickets at the door if they showed up to Family Night.  The prizes were as follows:

• Sports and Music: Soccer Ball, Basketball, 2x$10 iTunes gift cards, sports water bottle, OSU drawstring bag
• Art: Various craft supplies including colored pencils, markers, crayons, modeling clay, paints, carrying case, $20 Michael’s gift card, coloring books and painting books.
• Baking: Various baking supplies including mixing bowls, measuring cups, measuring spoons and cake mixes

So the stage was set.  We sent home RSVP forms with the kids the week prior to the big event and were already surprised at the numbers we were getting back.  Surely not every person that claimed to be attending would actually show, right?

I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong.  It was a great turn out. Just me, the staff, and over 150 guests.

150 guests!?

This is where I start to struggle with words.  I was so overwhelmed by how many people were in attendance, how happy the kids were to be there, how well behaved they were and how much fun everybody was having that I spent the remainder of the evening walking around with a stunned smile on my face (a stubborn smile that wouldn’t come off for days afterward).  I watched as the baking group ran a bake sale, the dancers blew everybody away with their choreography, sports group battled for soccer supremacy and showed off their new dodgeball game and the art group toured box city.

I realize now that there aren’t any words I can put down that would accurately portray how amazing this night was, so let me give you the cliff notes.

The kids dreamed it, the kids did it, the community watched, and I was amazed.

It’s hard to believe that my time at LifeCare Alliance is about to come to a close. I’ve busily spent the week finishing up my remaining projects and preparing for my final presentation at The Columbus Foundation.

I’ve been working to draft a fishing letter to pet food retailers in hopes of receiving donations of pet food and/or supplies. I’ve also written a similar letter to veterinary offices explaining LifeCare’s procedure of assisting clients with vet bills. Because most vet offices require payment up front, some practices have been weary to accept pre-approval as a place holder. After several drafts and a quick self-tutorial in Mail Merge, over 200 letters were finally mailed. Responses have started to come in this week, from both retailers and vet offices, and seeing the results of my hard work has been very rewarding.

Fishing letters wait to be mailed

I have learned a lot during my summer with LifeCare, both in and out of the office. LifeCare Alliance has taught me a great deal about the needs of the Columbus community and the inner workings of a large non-profit agency. The staff has shown me the importance of thorough communication, teamwork, and the fun of staff lunches around Columbus. Columbus rush hour has taught me patience, and the Columbus Clippers and the Columbus Crew have shown me that there is team spirit to be found outside of Ohio Stadium.  It was an unforgettable summer, and I am so grateful to The Columbus Foundation and LifeCare Alliance for giving me this incredible opportunity.

LifeCare Alliance’s founder, Catherine Nelson Black, began the agency in 1898 thereby creating the first in-home health agency and Ohio’s first Visiting Nurse Association. Her motto was, “Take care of those no one else pays any attention to.” For the past 115 years, volunteers, donors, and staff members have dedicated themselves to caring for individuals that may have otherwise been overlooked. Some might wonder, after all this time? After all this time there are people willing to continually give their time, money, and resources to ensure that others receive what they need to live comfortably? The answer, as I have learned this summer, is quite simple. Always.

And so we’ve (almost) come to the end of the Fellowship! As Friday draws closer, it seems like there are more and more things to do and learn at the OEC. Last week was full of events both fun and professional. On Tuesday (8/6) a whole fleet of other interns and myself attended “A Dialogue on Climate Impacts and Opportunities in Ohio” panel at the Athletic Club downtown. This event was quite prestigious (former governor Ted Strickland gave opening remarks) and drew from a wide base of environmental advocates, including the Christian-based Interfaith Power & Light and the militarily minded Truman National Security Project. This event opened my eyes to how many lenses through which climate change can be viewed and combated, and I got to spend time with the OEC’s great intern family while doing so!

     We also got to spend time together last Friday when the OEC very kindly hosted an office potluck to commemorate the end of the summer intern season. Although rain drove us inside, that didn’t stop some from playing a little bocce in the hallway! Everyone had a great time, although it was bittersweet to say goodbye to some good friends I’ve made over the last 8 weeks.

     When I reflect on my time spent at the OEC this summer, I can’t believe how much I’ve learned in such a short time. Although my projects were largely administrative in nature, they also required a vast amount of research into environmental practices, energies, and projects in order for me to fully grasp the importance of my work, and to learn the industry lingo! Now, I can tell a REC from a LEED certification, I know where the Public Utilities and Ohio Air Quality Development Authority offices are, and I could recommend the best real estate in Ohio for a solar panel production facility. And that’s just scratching the surface! I have always considered myself an environmentally conscious person, and now I have an intimate knowledge of what Ohio is doing as a state to help our environment – and let me tell you, it’s varied, complicated, and wonderful. In addition to expanding my practical knowledge base, working at the OEC has allowed me to meet and work alongside some of the most dedicated, brilliant environmental minds in the state. I will be sad to leave my little desk in the OEC office, but I will certainly be taking fond memories with me.