Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

This week in our biweekly fellows meeting we spoke about power. Dr. Lomax defined power as the ability to control someone else’s or your own reality and to make people believe that they choose this reality for themselves. He also stated that while the wealthy have a lot of control in this society, that is not power. In other words, one cannot use their material wealth to control others’ perception of reality. I would like to challenge this statement a bit. 

Charles Taylor developed the theory of the social imaginary which states that the reality of society is shaped by the social elites. We as individuals come to accept the ideas and theories posed by those in power despite having never interacted with their work. It is not our conscious attempt at creating values but rather intuitions and practices that develop over time; it is our reality. While I do not completely agree with this theory, it helped me realize that there are many other ways the higher classes shape our reality. In our society, a lot of the world’s most wealthy control the media. For example, have you ever heard a mainstream news network say anything harsh about Bill Gates? It’s unlikely to find critical pieces on the billionaire and that is because he has donated over $166 million dollars to media outlets in the US and all over the world¹. Yet his ‘philanthropic’ projects in the developing world are quite troubling and harm many communities². Despite our lack of personal interaction with him, people generally hold Gates in high regard. Our societal values in the western world place wealthy philanthropists on a pedestal to the point where we give them a seat at a table they don’t belong. Power is a multifaceted concept that can be observed from multiple angles, and this is just one.

1. https://thegrayzone.com/2021/11/21/bill-gates-million-media-outlets-global-agenda/, https://www.mintpressnews.com/faux-generosity-how-bill-gates-bought-his-power-and-influence/263208/
2. https://www.mintpressnews.com/latin-american-scientists-say-bill-gates-gmo-golden-rice-total-failure/221007/, https://www.iatp.org/blog/202010/agricultural-revolution-gates-foundation-leading-africa-failure

My sixth week at the McConnell Arts Center involved more Arts Festival cleanup, organization, and preparation for upcoming events. As camps continued, I also worked the front desk while getting ready for our first Summer Outdoor Series and the next session of Camp Creativity. 

The week began with a Programming Meeting, where we touched base regarding Camp Creativity, the Summer Outdoor Series, and other performance rentals. I booked the last food truck we were waiting on, then began to draw up the contracts for the food trucks. In regards to Camp Creativity, I reached out to our counselor replacement and began to edit and distribute new contracts for instructors and counselors. Additionally, I created folders and got the camper roster organized. I created the camper groups, and assigned each group their counselors and home studio.  

As well as focusing on programming and events, I began the organization of our painting and drawing studio, which took almost a full day. I took all of our art supplies out of their respective cabinets, categorized and organized them. 

Lastly, during Week 6 I continued on with my assigned project of redesigning the MAC Survey and Evaluations, which we send out after events and classes. After researching how question style and content shapes consumer feedback, I constructed a short survey to send out after Camp Creativity, to test the new evaluation techniques.

It feels weird that this experience is already half over. These last 6 weeks have absolutely flown by. I have loved getting to experience the city as well as both opportunities offered by the Foundation and Equality. This week I distributed flyers for our legal clinic throughout parts of Columbus and am hoping to get more through the next couple weeks.

Some projects I have been working on include political mapping of cities, examining websites to see how we could improve ours, creating an educational slide show, and distributing information. All these projects are ongoing, so this week has just been working through those. Some staff will be going to Equality’s national conference, as well as some are balancing time, so this month there is a lot of people in and out at different times.

This week I also met with some prospective students for the John Glenn School at Ohio State to talk to them about my experience as an OSU student as well as someone involved with the political scene in Columbus. It was really cool to talk with excited and motivated kids. Some are interested in volunteering with my organization and it felt nice to introduce them to Equality.

At this point In my fellowship I feel as though I am in the grove of things and just working on projects with the goal of getting all of them done by the next week so I can take on more things. I hae really enjoyed all the different things I have worked on. I have done a lot of different things for Equality and really enjoyed all of them. I am excited to keep trying new things and continuing to learn about organizing, local politics, and education.

The week began with the 2022 NFL Caring for Kids Golf Outing hosted by the NFL Alumni Central Ohio Chapter. A portion of the donations will go to BGCCO. A group of Club Members and I met Archie Griffin, Mike Doss, Andy Katzenmoyer, and many others. Fun fact, I received an award in high school from an organization where Archie was a board member, and this was my first time meeting him. I spent most of my day driving around Fred Pagac Sr. His career highlights include coaching at OSU for 23 years and winning a Superbowl as an Outside Linebackers coach. He was Von Miller’s coach when the Broncos beat Cam Newton-led Carolina Panthers in Superbowl 50. The highlight of my week was being able to invite my childhood friend James as a volunteer for the event. It was our first time on a golf course!

During our fellowship learning session, we had guest speakers Elizabeth Martinez of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio and Dani Robbins of Nonprofit Evolution. Dani was a professor of mine and wrote my rec letter for the fellowship program. She reassured me that I’m on the right path to accomplish my long-term goals. Additionally, I met with the Advancement Team to discuss the progress of my fellowship goals and priorities. The team reassured me that they are here to help me be successful. I feel that I am on track to accomplish my short-term goals!

Today I am about to join Club Members as we take a field trip to Denison University located in Granville, Ohio. Denison is listed among the top 30 liberal arts colleges in America. Steve Carell from The Office is an alumnus and Woody Hayes started his football career here. This is one of the most exciting parts of my job. I hope the kids enjoy the trip. I will be sure to collect some great content for social media!

This week threw me back to a few weeks ago when I was just starting with Seeds of Caring, since this past week was week 1 for Session 2 of Kindness Corps this summer. We went all the way back to lesson 1, which is where we talk about who Seeds of Caring is, why we do what we do, and how kids are extremely powerful when it comes to helping our community.

Week 1 of the Kindness Corps is also our empathy lesson, which the kids learned about what empathy is and how to choose kindness every day. They made Kindness Bracelets as reminders to be kind and to do so in their everyday life, even if it is something small.

For this camp session, this week looked a bit different for me. This week was my first time teaching a Kindness Corps lesson completely by myself. I was nervous, and since I don’t have a teaching background, I wasn’t sure how I would do with this task. I feel lucky that my organization trusted me with this task, and I even studied my notes this week to make sure I was clear on all parts of the lesson.

On Tuesday morning, I taught by myself to a group of soon to be third graders and I am overall happy with how it went. I was nervous but I do feel like it was a success. During the rest of this week, myself and the other instructors worked together to teach the campers in larger groups, so we were all able to support each other during that. The kids at all the camps were very responsive to the lesson and I am looking forward to the next few weeks as we continue to go back.

On Thursday, I filmed a video with one of the programs coordinators for the Civic Engagement/Activism Anywhere Project, which will be shown to participants in the service project. In the video, I talk about my experience with government. I’m excited to be included in another area of the organization where I can expand my knowledge and help where I can.

I’ve also been helping the other Kindness Corps instructors with inputting data from Session 1. We gave the kids surveys at the end of the last lesson last week and they filled them out giving their opinions about what they have learned in the last few weeks. Overall, the results have been positive, and the kids have been able to articulate how much they have learned. I’m looking forward to teaching another great group of kids about Seeds of Caring and how they can help their community here in Columbus.

This week I was focused solely on organizing the survey feedback, and continuing to interview the volunteers for Speak! I was able to also schedule a shadowing opportunity at the start of the week. It was exciting to be able to shadow another individual who does the application processing, as this is one of the areas I was asked to explore. So far, I have shadowed two application processors, and even had the opportunity to explore the processing documents and guides. This is extremely helpful, because as I wrap up my time with Speak!, I will be reorganizing all of their training procedures. Speak! was in need of a general volunteer list, so this is something I have also been working on creating as I interview volunteers, and read their feedback on the survey.

For the next week my main focus will be on organizing all of the data collected, as well as creating a presentation for the board about said data. My goal with this presentation that I will be making is to give the board an idea of what the volunteers are needing and their suggestions to improve moving forward. This is definitely the most exciting, yet terrifying part of my fellowship experience. Afterall, this is exactly what Speak! brought me on for, so it is more exciting than anything that we are at this point in the process already! I feel that I have received a surplus of valuable feedback, and I am looking forward to being able to share the voices of our volunteers. I am so grateful for the time everyone has been taking to speak with me, but also that they feel comfortable sharing their concerns with me. It is a both a privilege and a responsibility to share their concerns, so that everyone involved feels heard.

To kick off my week, I headed to the ASPIRE program, where we went out for a day full of fun. To begin, we went to a nearby library so that we could discuss launching a section of the Next Chapter Book Club with ASPIRE and gauge interest from participants. However, once we got to the library, some of our participants preferred to walk around and see if there was anything they wanted to rent. One participant decided to get two movies that she could watch with her nieces at home. This experience was really fun for me to see in particular because I was with her when she got her first library card, and now I got to see her putting it to use! While we were there, one of our participants found an old friend who was working at the library, and they both convinced me to get a library card of my own. Personally, I haven’t been to a public library in a long time, as I usually just utilize the ones at my university. However, I can now say that I am a proud owner of a Columbus library card. If you have not been to any of the Columbus library locations, I highly recommend stopping by, as it is a wonderful place that I overlooked in my three years in Columbus so far.

After the library, we visited a small market that was set up like a grocery store, however all of the food inside was free! I had never seen a food pantry set up like this one, so it was a new opportunity for me as well as the participants. I walked through the store with a participant and helped him gather groceries such as vegetables, fruits, eggs, and even meat that he would be able to take home. After these activities, we didn’t have much time in the day left. Yet, we made time to stop by an Ohio Thrift store and walk around looking at clothes and trinkets.

Later in the week, I was in the main office where I was mainly focused on giving out information for Next Chapter Book Club to those interested. There is at least one staff member at each of ARC’s locations that expressed interest in launching a section. Therefore, I was in communication with them sending training and answering any questions. Now that this project is moving further along, I’m getting more and more excited to have our first session and see the feedback from participants and staff.

Finally, I finished up my second publication of “Through Our Lens”, which is a blog that ARC sends out biweekly to staff, participants, and families to showcase all of the activities happening at different sites. This was my first edition that I constructed from scratch. While I was a little nervous, I was met with lots of support from ARC employees that oversaw this project for me.

I really enjoyed watching this edition come together. First of all, the events that were showcased were amazing– from visiting an alpaca farm to a day trip at the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame! Secondly, it was interesting to see the entire process from selecting photos to adding design elements to make it fun to read. Additionally, it was great to receive such positive feedback over the final draft from my supervisors. Going forward, I am excited to continue with my projects and see them go from ideas to reality.

With the end of July in sight, I am beginning to transition into a new stage of life along many dimensions. I will move over 500 miles south to North Carolina to begin law school in August. I will also complete my fellowship placement at Local Matters. The upcoming change has certainly brought new stressors into my life along with new excitement. This week, I have largely begun preparing both physically and mentally for these changes. 

At Local Matters, my week followed the same routine I’ve discussed in my prior posts. I was feeling worried that I am running behind deadlines, and while I still have a lot of work to complete, I realized I have drafted over 20 pages of the manual. I developed some of the sections outlining processes and procedures for technology use this week. Within my first few weeks, I noticed that lack of access to documents and confusion over where to find information in digital folders frequently arose. This problem often stymied the efficiency of meetings. Thus, I attempted to draft a thorough section on how to best upload files to the cloud. I also created a mockup folder for the team that better organizes files. Next week, I will meet with team members working on the food access team to identify areas of improvement for the operations of their team.

A highlight of this week was the Wednesday Fellows Learning Session. Elizabeth Martinez, the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Dani Robbins, a seasoned veteran in the non-profit sector and Director of the Masters of Nonprofit Administration programs at John Carroll University, spoke to the fellows. I really enjoyed Director Robbins’ presentation in particular. As someone who is solutions-oriented and prioritizes outcomes, learning about program evaluation was extremely helpful. I plan on incorporating material from this lesson into my work by formulating an evaluation process for the operations of my host site once the operations manual is put into practice. I am excited to use this knowledge to hopefully improve my organization’s capacity to serve the community.

It has been a journey since my first day at My Project USA. I have had a wonderful experience and learned so much about this organization over the past five weeks. I have learned the importance of communication, teamwork, and the delegation of roles. I also understand the importance of relationships in the community. We have created a network of individuals who are advocating and building a better future for our youth. Without these individuals, we could not have as big of an impact.

On Monday, we had a staff meeting that helped all summer employees understand the progress we have made with the students. We talked about the strengths and weaknesses of the program, gave praise to employees and teams, and also made suggestions for the future. One important asset we found was the social-emotional growth within the students. We saw a dramatic change in the students’ attitudes towards adults and their peers. With positive reinforcement, appropriate language, and modeling, we were able to remind the students what a positive environment looks like. We used phrases such as “Remember to be in control of your body’” and “Show respect for yourself and others” to give them a choice to do the right thing. They gradually understood that they can be in control of their behavior. I am proud of them for working out their problems, developing teamwork skills, and creating a climate that we can all benefit from.

Our team does an excellent job giving feedback so we can make improvements when needed. We had an open conversation with each other that helps us look at areas we need to improve and areas in which we are excelling. Our goals are to have clear communication with each other, be adaptable, and continue to build relationships with the students. When we are successful with these goals, we will be able to have a larger influence on the community. As an organization, we hope to be a safe haven for people in the community on the west side of Columbus, Ohio.

Although I did not mention it in previous blogs, there was a great achievement with the soccer team. A week ago, they went to Kentucky for a soccer tournament and won. Our soccer coaches worked hard to train the students, and this challenging work paid off. They represented Columbus, Ohio very well and were praised by other teams for their teamwork, agility, and spirit. I am proud of the soccer team because they earned their spot as champions of the tournament. They also worked hard academically so they could go to soccer practice and play. The partnership between the summer program and the soccer team created a space where the students can flourish while also having fun. We receive praise and gratitude from our high schoolers for creating an environment where they feel welcome.

My fifth week at the McConnell Arts Center consisted of post-Arts Festival tasks and front desk clerical work, as well as beginning a new project for the remainder of the summer. The MAC hosted three rental camps this week, so a full-time staff member needed to be stationed at the front desk at all times, due to check-in and check-out procedures, as well as in case of emergency. In addition to assisting with the rental camps and completing other front desk-related tasks, the MAC Programming Director assigned me to a task of revamping the MAC surveys and evaluation techniques. I began to analyze previous surveys which had been administered to MAC patrons after class or summer camp attendance, noting the format and characteristics of the questions, as well as the content of the questions. After my initial analysis, I began my project by beginning my research on survey techniques which could possibly elicit higher response rates. 

In addition to beginning research on our survey and evaluation practices, I began to look toward the second session of Camp Creativity. This involved surveying current supplies and looking for new counselors to replace the June counselors who were unavailable to work the second session. I met with the other team members responsible for programming and camps, and we analyzed what practices worked for the first session of camps and brainstormed what we can do to prepare for better practices for the second session.