THANK YOU to the Columbus Foundation for this morning’s learning session on career opportunities related to the non-profit sector. It was extremely helpful to hear from a panel of highly successful professionals and to learn about how they got to where they are today. I’m very thankful for the opportunity to hear their perspectives and to benefit from their helpful advice.
This week, I have been working to gather information, tie up loose ends, and document all of the transportation-related information I have gathered so far. I’m working to organize the information in a logical way, so that research efforts won’t need to be duplicated down the road. Final costs are still coming in, but I hope to finalize my recommendations next week so that I can get input from key staff members. I’m feeling good about the direction of the project, and my hope is that the final report will be very useful to The Homeless Families Foundation & The Dowd Education Center.
I can’t believe there’s only 3 weeks left in this summer fellowship program! I’ve learned so much already… Looking forward to the next 3 weeks and all of the experiences ahead!
This past week I had a training with Ohio University’s Voinovich School (acting as my project mentor) in Athens (which being a former Bobcat, was like going home) and learned how to analyze and report the data I have been collecting for the past two weeks. With case studies, it’s important to present the information almost like a story- with details, narratives, and pictures. My final product for this impact evaluation will be a four page document showing the overall themes and impacts that the VISTA Summer Associates have on the Summer Food Service Program, as well as five additional 1-page, double sided inserts describing each case. This is a tall order for only about three weeks left. I have to write the content, have it edited, make revisions, design a layout, find and insert pictures, and then have it printed and approved. I’m excited, and I think it will really turn out to be an impressive piece to put into my professional portfolio, but I am also nervous to get everything done in time!
I think that having the pressure of a timeline however creates better work, and challenges me to really use my time and energy wisely. I feel that I am right on schedule, as I have collected all of my data and transcribed it this past week, meaning that I am already knee deep in data analysis, moving onto starting my first case study insert. I think one of the most challenging partsof writing for this evaluation is that I have to be very concise and can’t include all of those details and nuances of each site that I find very interesting. I have to be very selective in what I include in the report, as politicians and other stakeholders that will be reading it won’t have a lot of time to spend looking it over and will need the most pertinent information presented in a way that is simple yet significant; concise yet interesting.
This is something that I am confident will be accomplished in some form over the next few weeks. And to add one additional item to my list is a presentation for the fellowship closing luncheon which will be in Pecha-Kucha format (if you’ve never heard of this, like I hadn’t, check out the link). So with that added in I should really get back to work!
Until next time,
Last week, in wake of an unforeseen appendectomy for one of our Summer Learning Academy teachers (she is doing much better now, things worked out!), I was thrust into the teacher role while we figured out how to get another teacher to fulfill her spot. It was everywhere from fun to stressful and certainly another interesting twist to my role as an intern. It’s not like I haven’t taught before: I was a substitute teacher for my high school’s Calculus class. But, sadly, that was no preparation for this, and I had to be a little more creative than simply explaining how to solve derivatives. It didn’t take long however to realize how uninteresting I can be: the kids were more interested in our puppet frog, the computers, the mirror on the far wall, and their own shoes. But in those moments where they performed something for the first time, I can’t tell you how exciting and rewarding that was.
The highlight of my DSACO experience since my last blog had to be from this past Saturday: A wine-tasting fundraiser to support someone newly near and dear to my heart: the one and only Jackson Amon. He is one of our Learning Academy scholars, a star reader with many supporters. Every year family friends join the Buddy Walk team Backin’ Jack in honor of Jackson. This wine-tasting hosted by the Amon’s in their beautiful back yard raised funds for this Buddy Walk team, and it was so much fun (hence the title of FUNdraising). I held the prestigious title of Pourer, and though I hardly knew anyone there, the common bond of backing Jack was enough. The weather was delightful, the decorating sublime, and the hosts beyond amicable. I can’t wait to be a part of Pour It Forward next year!
And lastly, I would just like to comment on one last thing. Between the excitement I witness when our SLA scholars learn and the unexpected learning I seem to experience every day, I have realized the real potential of learning. Learning doesn’t make you smarter, rather it opens up a new world, a new realm of possibilities. Learning doesn’t require work or structure, it requires an open mind. Learning isn’t a chore, it’s a gift. Learning can be experienced any time, by any one, and inspired by any other.
So cheers to open minds, to new friends, to new possibilities, to greater potential, and to DSACO.
I figured I would take the opportunity to write a blog post while it is storming outside. Today is concert day, and I have spent the last few hours getting caught in the bustle of the King Arts Complex as we set up and tear down and maybe set up again, trying to decide if the storm is going to keep us from having the Heritage Concert Series tonight or if we should go ahead and risk it.
It is funny how things seem to work at the complex. Both in the office and in the classrooms, I tend to hear the phrase “Just when you think you have seen it all…” on a daily basis. Three weeks ago, it was a busted water pipe that shut down all but one bathroom in the center. Two weeks ago, it was a busted bus window and a burnt potato that ruined the office microwave and left me trying to eat a frozen, frosted Lean Cuisine with a broken plastic fork. Last week, a burning smell caused us to evacuate the building, the kids dramatically coughing as if the whole place was burning down. Every firetruck in Columbus rushed to the scene and surrounded our building! And, of course, for the last few weeks the only time it has stormed is on Thursday afternoons, right when we are setting up for the festival.
Believe me though, I am not complaining! These are just minor inconveniences that seem to come up. In fact, I have learned a lot through the experience. Going into the fellowship, these are things that I would never have anticipated having to deal with, but it is the reality of work. I tend to take things way too seriously, and this has taught me to lighten up. It has also showed me that part of growing closer with others is going through some not-so-perfect circumstances with them. I listened to a sermon recently called “Building a Life Framework that is Ready to Suffer” (http://www.xenos.org/teachings/?series=125). One of the final remarks that was made was that “we were never meant to suffer alone.” While these minor issues in the office are nowhere near the suffering that humans experience, or even that I have experienced in my own life, these minor issues have caused me to reflect on the role that my relationships play in my life experience. In the office, minor issues leave us to laugh and have a shared experience that we can recount later. In the Christian community of which I am a part outside of work, the relationships that I have are such an important part of making it through tougher times in life, and the more suffering we experience together, the closer we become.
This summer, I have learned SO much, but I think one of the biggest things I am learning is that I cannot neglect people who are in my life, no matter where I am. I tend to be an introvert, someone who mulls and processes and reflects and could be perfectly content to sit alone at home and just think (I love writing blogs like this one), but by the grace of God I am being transformed into someone who is able to get outside of myself and be involved with others and engaged in lives other than my own. It is such an important part of life to care about and care for others, and I am so excited to work somewhere where I have a daily opportunity to serve others and impact the community I am in.
Well, it appears we are going ahead with the festival tonight, and the storm is almost finished. Time to go set up!
An intern, a woman experiencing homeless, and I went to a city council meeting on Monday to discuss the long waitlist for shelters in Columbus. We informed the councilmen of the long wait-list including women and veterans and the recent loss of stimulus monies to house individuals experience homelessness. They listened and responded to our concerns. I am planning to have a meeting with Councilmen Hearcel Craig, who gave me his phone number and told me to call him. At this meeting, we will inform him that it is necessary for additional shelter space in churches and recreation centers to meet the demand.
Joe told us about his new social enterprise, FrameWORK. He discussed his executive summary, funding streams, and the type of employees he wants for his workforce development program. His goal is to hire felons with non-violent/theft offenses to do entry-level labor work. From this meeting I learned that you need to have a good executive summary to get buy-in from investors. Joe has collected data about the initial costs, when the company would start to make money, and the “social return on investment” (more people not relying on state assistance).
Joe also gave us advice how to improve Street Speech, the Coalition’s social enterprise. He gave us advice how to increase the revenue of Street Speech since it is actually losing money now. He believes that the vendors need more sales professional training and the placement of vendors should be more controlled. We are meeting these needs by having a mystery shopper & a readership survey.
Today we carried out the first secret shopper experience. The shoppers were able to find both negative and positive interactions of the vendors in the downtown area. With the information I received I will discuss the results at the next vendor meeting so everyone is aware. I plan to work with a researcher at the International Poverty Solutions Collaborative (IPSC) to analyze the qualitative and quantitative data. This data will be aggregated and sent to future donors.
Last evening was the annual Family Night at SYEP camp held at Camp Mary Orton. Towards the end of camp, every camper’s family is invited to spend a fun evening experiencing some of the things their children do at camp. Swimming, BINGO, and COSI experiments were big favorites last night. There was also a slideshow of photos taken by the Guild’s photographer, Michelle Jordan, and a small art gallery filled with dedications to nature and camp.
Of course the best part was the food! Hamburgers, hotdogs, cole slaw, baked beans, and watermelon. Yum. Yes, I am a college student and no, I could not pass up free food! Otterbein professors like to joke that all they need to do to gain attendance at school functions if provide free food.
The most exciting and entertaining part of the night is when the campers put on skits. Duck Wars has been a tradition for many years. Age groups of kindergarten to middle school aged kids, are divided into families and each family does one skit. Most families started off with the chant,
OH….
Wasn’t it a bit of luck
That I was born a baby duck
With yellow socks, and yellow shoes
I can do whatever I choose.
Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.
Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.
GO … DUCKS!
But after the chant, all the families perform a different REMIX filled with dancing, stomping, clapping, joking, and cheering. And let me tell ‘ya – they dance a heck of a lot better than I can!
Getting to experience Family Night and Duck Wars last night was incredible. It was fun and it was interesting. I got to see kids interacting and having fun with each other and making friends. I didn’t go to camp when I was a kid and watching how much fun at camp they had really made me wish I had attended some kind of day camp. Family Night is probably the highlight of my Fellowship experiences thus far.
…I survived my first audit! WARM’s SFSP (Summer Food Service Program) had its annual review by the Ohio Department of Education this past week. After much prep work, I am proud to say we passed with flying colors (and no corrective action on our reimbursement claim!). This is such a relief because implementing a successful and sustainable summer food service site is expensive and difficult. This experience taught me the importance of organization in running a smooth operation. My boss, Deb, and I joked about the ideal of touching a piece of paper only one time, but this audit showed me it doesn’t matter how many times I touched something as long as I get the result for which I am hopeful!
Also, recently I had the opportunity to shadow a woman who works in the client services department of WARM. It was one of Deb and my mutual goals of the summer fellowship to gain an understanding of various positions in the agency, so I was excited to have a day “off” of my normal work to do this! Sarah has her Master’s in Social Work, the program I am currently in at Ohio State, and so I was especially vested in observing the work she does. We had a great day of seeing clients who come in to use WARM’s pantry services. WARM’s client services department is also distributing farmer’s market coupons for families to purchase fresh produce at the nearby Westerville Farmer’s Market. As a Dietetics major in my undergraduate studies and a firm believer in buying locally, I was delighted to hear about this initiative. I read about a new program designed to foster partnerships between healthcare providers and farmers markets to measure the impact of increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables in underserved communities. (Read http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/07/23/doctors-write-a-prescription-for-produce/?hpt=hp_bn11 for more info. ) Overall, I felt incredibly affirmed in my decision to pursue a career in social work.
The first two focus groups of Kids Lunch Club volunteers were held today. I am working with an allied health professor from Otterbein University to determine volunteer satisfaction as well as KLC participant satisfaction and possible suggestions to implement next summer. One area of improvement is creating a webpage with more useful information (currently ours is bare bones only!) for volunteers, participants, and potential donors. I have never made a webpage before, so I’m anxious to use this as my creative outlet for the next week or so! I’ll share the link as soon as it’s in working order…
I’m finding out that every experience is very attainable if you just ask. My supervisor Dave encouraged me to shape this fellowship to make it worthwhile. Attending a board of trustees meeting was at the top of my list and he made sure that happened. It could possibly have been my first and last board of trustees meeting that I was happy and engaged in the whole time.
What could I possibly be doing that’s so fun at our meeting? Well, the meeting was a bit dry but I wasn’t paying too much attention to the meeting’s content rather, I was intrigued by the dynamics of it. My specialized track at Ohio State is nonprofit management, meaning hours of case studies and best practices readings. During the whole meeting, I kept notes on the mannerisms of the group while mentally referencing my base knowledge of board and director relationships. It was absolutely incredible! You can tell our executive director, John, is seasoned and comfortable with our board as well as how strategic and visionary he leads with the board. I could see this delicate dance happening as both parties work to understand and decide together what decisions would act in the best interest of the organization.
Sitting at a board meeting is substantially different than a staff meeting. I could pick up right away that my coworkers are very mission-driven. The board members are able to remove them self to look at the bigger picture and of funds, practically every other comment at the trustees meeting referred to CD4AP’s budget.
After the trustees meeting, I turned to the gentleman on my right and asked him to explain further about how the board operates. I was curious about generalities such as board annual contributions and expectations, committee organization, and recruitment. It felt really good to apply my basic foundation knowledge about nonprofits to a real situation.
Time is flying! Right now I feel as if my project is getting larger instead of smaller as time goes on! Kathy and I have been working so hard in the past two weeks to actually start implementing the changes we have been researching and organizing. Here is an update on my projects!
Sustainability
Mike from Litech Lighting is coming in today to do an energy audit of the whole church. We had originally just done an audit of the Food Pantry’s wing, but AEP did not accept the application because we were on the church’s account and not our own (a minor technicality, to say the least). While I first viewed this as a HUGE setback (the energy savings from the audit would have funded many of my suggested environmental changes), it is now better than I had originally hoped. I realized that our application being denied opened the doors for the entire church to save energy, instead of just our little corner. This will be a huge step forward in terms of saving money for the church but also becoming more sustainable and responsible as a whole.
We have also put out our first two sets of recycling bins! While Kathy and I are still deciding on which company to go with for our recycling, we decided it would be best to go ahead and start collecting! The bins have been well-received so far, but it will take some training to educate people on what types of materials are recyclable and which aren’t. It is quite simply amazing and somewhat frightening as to how little the general public knows about recycling. This should be something every person is educated on, as it saves so much money and resources for our community. In addition to our recycling bins, Kathy and I also bought a free-standing water cooler for the Food Pantry volunteers. The Food Pantry spends approximately $240.00 per year on plastic water bottles! Not only will our water cooler cut that cost, it will also reduce the waste our Pantry generates.
A very exciting turn in my plan is food waste recycling. We are starting a trial period with Eartha Limited to collect food waste, which in turn is recycled into compost and biofuels. We have estimated the cost of garbage collection will but cut by AT LEAST a third (and possibly much more) by our food waste and recyclable material collection. We have calculated that the savings we accrue from less garbage collection will pay for our new recycling costs, and still generate savings for the church after cost. How amazing is this??? Not only are we becoming more responsible stewards of our environment, but we are saving money doing it. It can’t get much better than that!
Here is a link to a video that features both our Food Pantry and Eartha Limited!
Volunteering
Kathy and I are revitalizing the volunteer training manuals to incorporate what was asked for in our volunteer surveys, and also to train volunteers in the environmental changes taking place. Many of our volunteers requested additional training through their surveys so they can better serve the needs of our community. We have three training sessions planned, starting this Saturday! Kathy and I will give presentations to the volunteers on topics including environmental changes, our new scheduling system (hopefully VolunteerHub), new “uniforms” (nametags and aprons), and how to best help our clients in general. These training sessions will be the first time I really get to interact with the volunteers, which will be very rewarding.
Transportation
Last but not least, the problem that has eluded me so far this summer. Our client surveys have shown that only 36% of families that come through our pantry own a car. In comparison to the average 89% of American families that own a car, the disparity in these percentages is enormous. Further, 50% of our clients sometimes or always have a hard time finding transportation to our pantry. These statistics show our Food Pantry has a problem, and a large one at that. How do we solve this issue for such a large percentage of the population? I still don’t have an answer, but we’re getting there. We decided to host a meeting of Food Pantry managers to discuss this issue. My hope with this meeting is the “two heads are better than one” philosophy (or 5 or 10 heads!). I am certain the transportation issue is not one single to our pantry, but is a problem for every pantry. If we can come together to find common solutions, maybe we can work together to implement them and then better serve our community as a whole. I am hopeful this meeting will bring the area food pantries closer together and will strengthen our relationships with each other.
Sorry for the long post! I have a feeling next week’s will be even longer!!! 🙂
Last week was the second week of the Heritage Concert Series, and the Kids Gallery raised (drum-roll, please…) $67! It was storming during the festival so we moved indoors, which actually helped our sales quite a bit as we had more customers walking through despite the less attractive booth set-up. The goal for next week, set by the 7 and 8 year olds is $70, and I think we can do it!
The big seller this week was bracelets!
The dance camp is going strong this week, and the kids have a performance coming up so I anticipate a crazy schedule. Luckily we are finished with all of the small individual projects, so now I can be flexible only working with a few students at a time on some bigger items. Last week, we started making a turtle table with paper mache, and will hopefully have it finished by Thursday!
I think the biggest thing I have learned in the past few weeks is how to have a better balance between accomplishing class activities but catering to individual needs. On one hand, there are so many individual talents that I want the students to be able to freely express; we have lyric writers, poets, comic book artists, graffiti artists, drawers, and students who like to do “girly” crafts. On the other hand, we have students who haven’t developed much interest in the arts or found their niche or interest. Last week I was able to approach some of the students about putting their individual talents to use and doing some research and projects on the side that they can contribute, and they seemed to be excited about that. Some of the students who have shown little interest in the visual arts this summer are also getting excited about some of our bigger, messier projects. I was certainly thrilled to see children taking an interest in learning both inside and outside of the camp.
Thirdly, there is the issue of financial literacy. I feel I am in the very beginning stages of understanding what the kids understand. The 7-8 year-olds had a pretty successful lesson last week, discussing all of the options for what you can do with your money, and what it looks like to set smart savings goals. The lesson with the 9-10 year-olds was quite a big leap though. My first mistake was walking into the room and saying (as enthusiastically as possible) “We are going to learn how to fill out budget sheets today!” You can only imagine a 9 year old’s response to that one! I had half the class tuned out before I even began. This week I think we are going to take a few steps back and go a little more basic, and I am going to brainstorm ways to make the activities more interesting.
Hope you get a chance to stop by the Heritage Concert Series!
Jamie
Welcome to the blog of The Columbus Foundation's Summer Fellowship Program. Follow our Fellows as they help out the nonprofits they are matched with, learn on the job and from each other. The projects they are assigned to are challenging and highly important to the community and each nonprofit. Check back frequently, or sign up for the RSS, as many updates will be coming. It's going to be an exciting summer!
Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs 