Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

I was able to talk with so many people at the library this week, and I am continually humbled by how welcoming and gracious everyone is with their time and knowledge. Experience has shown me that this generosity is not a given in work environments, but at CML it is pervasive.

I met with the Branch Manager of the Whitehall library on Monday, and she was as happy to share the successes of her staff and resources as I was to hear about them. I met with CML’s Director of Marketing as well as the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Advocacy. Both were kind enough to share their work with me, and I really felt like I was one of the team! Its wild to think that my time here is quickly winding down and that only three weeks of the fellowship remain. I’m busy writing up stories to include in an impact report for donors. I’ve said it before, but there is so much the library does that people probably don’t know about. I hope my work helps raise awareness of just how much CML does for our community.

To cap the week off, our team took a trip downstairs to visit the baby chicks that recently hatched at the Main library. It provided a very cute midday break from meetings, notes, and spreadsheets. They’re housed in the Children’s Area, and the staff was quite a twitter about them (pun intended!). One of the baby’s pecked my hand, and my coworker captured my reaction. I hope it brings a smile to your face as you head into the weekend.

Till next week,

Amy

I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned from this fellowship is time management. You’d think having a full eight hours to conduct work would be more than enough, but on the contrary I always leave with the next idea in my head or thoughts on how to improve a project. 

Week seven has been filled with lots of research, designing, and organization. I’ve been able to witness the starting vision of a pilot program grow and become a near tangible product. This week I also had the opportunity to attend a web seminar on the kindful and point app integration. This integration connects the volunteer app, Point, with the CRM, Kindful. It was really interesting to hear the story of Point’s beginning and its continued journey to serve nonprofits. 

If I could give week seven any name it would be “weirdly challenging.” The challenges were not from work itself, but this week included a power outage at work, a very chaotic trip to Sam’s club, and last but not least I got locked out, while at the office alone. Luckily for me, the Family Mentor Foundation knows all the neighboring buildings, so I was able to go over and call for help. 

Besides the random occurrences, I was able to continue to work specifically on our upcoming impact report. This report allows us, volunteers, and partners to see what Family Mentor Foundation has done in the past year, in regards to the number of kids served, boxes distributed, and feedback from schools. 

Like the past six weeks before, week seven has brought me new challenges, and learning experiences. On one hand I am excited about returning to school in August, but will definitely miss coming to the office everyday, and being a part of the FMF team. 

I cannot believe that I am already done with week 6! How is time going by this quickly? I am getting nostalgic already thinking about how much I am going to miss the little things about this internship: Charlotte’s big smile that she greets me with as I walk into the office, the laughs I share with my boss, and even these reflections of my weekly growth. 

Week 6 was filled lots of different fun projects, some old and some new. I did more grant research, submitted more donation requests, made more social media posts, and began to prepare ideas for next year’s annual golf tournament since it is going to be the 40th year for the tournament. In addition, I organized archives of Netcare’s past 30 years. Though Netcare changed its name multiple times over the years, its mission had remained similar. It was amazing to see that Netcare was still making an impact in so many lives decades ago. I also got to attend my first Netcare Foundation Board meeting this week. It was interesting to see how my boss interacts with her board and how she gets approval for funding for the Netcare Foundation’s various initiatives. 

My favorite part of the week was my time with the forensic center this week. As someone interested in the criminal psychology, it was eye-opening to hear about the forensic psychologists day to day experiences. I was shocked by the multitude of trainings and experiences that I did not even think about but that are necessary for a job like this. 

My week would not be complete without mentioning one last little thing that added some excitement to my week: Sushi! I am sure you are thinking I am talking about some raw fish and rice, but no, not quite. Its my boss’ puppy! What a cute name, right? I have heard so much over the summer about this adorable, little, yet ferocious animal. It was fun to finally get to meet Sushi and be able to put a face to the name, so to speak. 

As my time with Netcare enters its latter half, I am going to try to continue to notice and appreciate the little things that have made my summer thus far so unique and special. 

It has been a very busy week at ECDI! In the WBC we continue to work on the Covid Resource Network intakes, we have a thousand errors we need to correct in our data tracking system, and we were on the radio! In the Food Fort we have decided to have our first Farm Stand next Friday, we created signage in multiple languages, and John has been dealing with a lot feedback about the Food Fort from the tenants.

Edgar went on the radio and spoke in Spanish about what ECDI and the Women’s Business Center do. I got to help Edgar proofread and translate the Women’s Business Center PowerPoint. This project and the Food Fort sign project gave me the opportunity to grow my Spanish writing skills. Honestly, these projects I have done with ECDI have given me more of an opportunity to advance my Spanish skills than the American education system has.

I really have noticed how much my bosses actually know me, and it really reminds me of the difference between private and public schools. In private schools classes are smaller and you tend to get closer to your professors than you would at a large public school. I feel like it’s a similar comparison to non-profits and for-profits, as I have noticed that at ECDI I know everyone, more than their name and title. And when I have worked at for-profits relationships are mostly surface level. This piece of non-profits makes me quite happy as I would rather work somewhere I feel comfortable enough to be my truest self.

As a young child, I always assumed that college students have it together. And now as a college student I always assume that working adults have it together.

Something that I have learned from my bosses is that having it together is not an everlasting state, or even a real thing. You know to me they dress, walk, and talk like they “have it together,” they do taxes, and other real adult things, but this goal of truly having “it” together seems unachievable.

Everything just is a balancing game, one that I can only hope to get good at.

Welp that’s all for this week! See ya in the next!
—Joseline

At this point in the fellowship, I am aware of my remaining projects and have started to map out what I can finish up in the next few weeks. FLOW is such an amazing organization that I wish I could complete ALL of the projects they have in mind! Reflecting on my time so far, I believe FLOW is an organization I will support for as long as I live in Columbus. I am looking forward to attending events long after my time as a fellow ends. FLOW is special because each person involved is deeply, truly passionate about their mission. As volunteers, they give up their evenings, weekends, and days off to support current projects and keep the organization functioning. I am amazed every day by the impact they have made on our city even while fighting a rather thankless battle. Our environment, water sources, communities, and bodies are healthier and safer because of FLOW. A current project that has impacted me most is the Slyh Run Bridge project near Cranbrook Elementary that I mentioned in previous posts. Volunteers with FLOW have dedicated many hours of sweat, muscle power, and planning to get the bridge installed. Multiple tons of dirt, rocks, and gravel moved by hand. After the bridge is completed, will FLOW get the credit they deserve for installing it? They don’t care! Their only goal is to help the community and make sure that the river is a resource, not an obstacle. I am truly envious of their selfless passion to keep our communities strong. Thank you FLOW!

This week I have been working on an outreach project. There is a segment of Fisher Run, which is a tributary of the Olentangy River, that runs through private property. Based on our observations on Google Earth, the banks of the stream consist mainly of turfgrass. To prevent erosion and pollution in the river, it is ideal to have a mixture of native vegetation, trees, and prairie surrounding the stream. My job is to get in contact with these homeowners to see if FLOW can come check it out! The ideal end result would be the homeowners agreeing to convert parts of their lawn into native prairie or homes to native trees. Sounds like a win-win to me! Hopefully they think the same.

I included some pictures of the hard work going into the Slyh Run Bridge project! Talk to you next week. -Shelly

I can’t believe that we have made it all the way to week 6! This week we finally had the kids back at camp! The theme was a day at the beach. We made it an unspoken goal to dress in beach attire for the entirety of this week. I passed the test on the first day but as the week went on, I ran out of different colorful things in my closet. While my outfits were not on par with the theme, this week seemed to be a fan favorite amongst all of the kids. 

At the beginning of the week, we made miniature coral reefs using different types of art material to try and create an array of colors and textures. It was so nice seeing the kids be able to do a project without much structure and direction so we were truly able to see their own creativity within their art pieces. These reefs ended up coming out beautifully! I am so proud that they were able to stay on track with creating a 3 day project. Most people would get lost in what they are doing and give up, these kids just went with the flow and let things fall accordingly. Towards the end of the week we had 2 more big projects, the first being a mobile wall decoration made out of beads and seashells. This project was very challenging. They had to learn how to make a few different types of knots. Some I know people my age can’t do! The other project was a giant sun scenery portrait made out of scrap paper. This one was messy! Using just paper, glue and paint as materials it was bound to be interesting. That it was! All these projects turned out to be incredible and I was so proud that they were able to finish strong. 

As I finish this week off for myself, I will be focused on getting ready for next week. The teens are gonna be coming back,  we should be setting up for that and welcoming them bright and early on Tuesday morning!

Building a strong relationship with clients is one of the most gratifying components of a nonprofit immersion program. Whenever people come in for produce days, I am able to write their name down from memory, and give them their typical weekly items. What was initially hesitant conversation and small talk has transformed into twenty minute conversations about weekend trips and life stories.

Every day, when I come into MFS, I am most excited to see one client. This lady is an Iraqi refugee whose story nearly brought me to tears during my first week at the office. I saw her bustling around the office, bringing people their paperwork and sorting through clothes, and believed that she was a coworker. I soon learned how she learned English on her own when she came to the states; she brought in her job manual and stated that she needed it translated into Arabic so that she could work. She inspired our ESL program and she now inspires my new project; the development of a database for Muslim mental health resources in Ohio. Each day during lunch, we bring each other different Iraqi and Indian foods and discuss our day and our plans. This week we had tabouleh and chicken korma.

At MFS it is very common that a client asks for a referral to a psychiatrist or counselor. Due to the language and cultural gap, more times than not the compatibility between the professional and client is not a match. I am currently developing a way for clients or companies like MFS to sift through the abundance of licensed professionals and find one who understands the nuances of treating a patient with a diverse background.

When I think about my future career plans, I hope to foster relationships with my clients like the ones I have built at MFS. Additionally, I want to find artful ways to tell the stories I have learned so that more people are inspired to contribute to Muslim Family Services’ mission.

I am thankful for the variety of experiences I have been exposed to while at Central. Probably one of the most valuable experiences thus far has been assisting with interviewing candidates for a marketing & outreach position. This is a relatively new experience for me – having only interviewed one candidate for one other position in my professional career. It is so difficult. 

Central works really hard to hire the best candidates for open positions. One of the biggest challenges is finding candidates that are interested in part-time work. For nonprofit organizations with limited resources, especially those that rely on grants to fund their programs, this is the reality in which they must operate. And even though Central has committed to paying livable wages for employees across the organization, hiring is still a challenge. 

Most impressive to me, have been the candidates that come into the interviews prepared. Many of them have taken the time to look over the website, and some have even given examples of changes they would make, or initiatives they would undertake to help grow marketing at Central. I also think it is important to be able to give specific examples of past experiences that you can draw from to answer interview questions. 

We have some promising candidates, so I hope we are able to pick a candidate soon that will be able to expand Central’s reach, tell authentic stories about the awesome work they are doing, and make connections with community members. 

PS – to all of my fellow Fellows, make sure you are documenting all of the awesome things you are doing this Summer with your host sites! These details will come in handy as you prepare for your own interviews in the future!