Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

I grew up in a small town in southwestern Ohio. I lived on 6 acres of land that backed up into our local metro park filled with deer, coyotes, rabbits, birds, wildflowers and trees. My parents live on a small farm so I grew up surrounded by chickens, turkeys, rabbits and other various animals. This green environment filled with life was all I really knew until I left for college at The Ohio State University. Ohio State is located in Columbus, Ohio—the 14th largest city in the US. I have always loved the idea of living in city where there are things to do and places to go but it was a difficult adjustment from the lush nature that I was surrounded by at home. Everything felt man-made and artificial, even the sad little trees that lived in between the slabs of concrete. There was a point where I literally downloaded a nature sounds app to listen to sometimes when I felt like I was suffocating in big buildings and streetlights. For me, a girl who has always loved the idea of city living, it took losing trees, nature and wildlife to realize how much I loved them. And as I learned more about life outside my small hometown, I understood just how endangered those precious resources are today.

This is a photo I took this week of a recovering turtle in our wildlife hospital that was hit by a car (see the small cracks towards the back of his shell).

Wildlife is not just about cute fuzzy baby animals that look cute on Facebook. Wildlife is a representation of a healthy ecosystem and a healthy planet. We can see direct impacts of our actions as a society laid out in endangered species and threatened habitats and our deer, possums, raccoons, coyotes, rabbits are crucial to the balance of our home. One of my favorite aspects of Ohio Wildlife Center is the educational component. I can distinctly remember my mom taking me to nature centers and sanctuaries for educational programs when I was young to learn about the life cycle of a monarch butterfly, calls of songbirds and species of local wildflowers—the miracles of the world, especially in the eyes of a five year old. I would sit like a pretzel in a semi-circle, enraptured by the box turtle in the hands of a park ranger or making fallen leaf tracings in the fall. I believe these small experiences shaped the way that I value nature today and the way I hope to protect nature in the future. In our wildlife hospital, we care for orphaned wood ducks in the hopes that they will mature and repopulate the next spring. In our summer camps and educational programs, we care for children in the hopes that they will appreciate and protect our environment many springs from now.

This is another photo that I took this past week of a baby duckling in our wildlife hospital. We have many ducklings brought in to us that were found orphaned in the spring and summer.

Olivia Adkins

Hello again! Week 2 of my fellowship experience has been INCREDIBLE and I cannot wait to see what the rest of the summer has in store.

To begin, I’ll introduce myself further than I did last week… My name is Natalie Gilbert and I just graduated from THE Ohio State University in May with my Bachelor’s of Science degree in Public Health with a minor degree in Spanish. I have lived in and around Columbus my whole life and I am so enjoying my time spent giving back to this community.

This week has been incredibly busy but this week I’ve really learned the importance of community and networking. To start off, my supervisor Kelly and I started our week with some communication with a local Kroger that had reached out to us regarding some extra produce. I was mostly surprised that a Kroger had casually thought of our humble food pantry to donate to, but then I learned that we have many strong relationships with Kroger’s in and around Worthington. I also learned that the donation Round Up Program that collects money from customers rounding up their bills at Kroger, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to us in years past! Keep rounding up, Columbus!

The donated produce in the back of my car heading to the pantry!

Another exciting part of my week was being apart of the Worthington community’s CoHatch meeting on Friday morning. This was a meeting filled to the brim with women from non-profits around Columbus sharing ideas and lending advice to others and it was inspiring, to say the least. It was so exciting to hear women speak so passionately about their organizations, all of the successes they are seeing through their hard work, and then helping each other out instead of being in competition with each other. The most inspiring was hearing Amber from Legacy speak about her successes with her organization that leads former human trafficking victims through rehabilitation towards redemption through her for-profit company Eleventh Candle Co.

I absolutely loved being apart of this brainstorm session and look forward to moving forward in this community with these hard-working and successful neighbors!

Until next week,

Natalie

After my first day at Central Community House, I knew this place was special. But, I thought to myself, “That’s just the first-day high. This is just the honeymoon phase. By next week, I will view this place as just work.”

However, yesterday marked the completion of my second week at Central Community House and I still very much like it. It is work. But, its special environment and the different tasks I get to do make it enjoyable. Central Community House is just as much a place where leaders come together to provide services to the community as it is a place that serves the community.

What I mean is that at my desk, while I am planning fundraising events and trying to figure out how to write a grant, I say hello to and smile at the children who pass by me on their way to the Center’s daycare and computer room. When I enter the lunch room to heat up my food, I am greeted by a dozen Po-ke-no playing elderly women as if I am their own granddaughter. When it nears 6 o’clock and I am finishing up my tasks for the day I hear children from the summer camp playing the piano downstairs and singing. And they sound good! I love not only serving the community of which Central Community House is located but getting to know the community– both original and new community members.

Nevertheless, getting to know the community does not always leave you with the best impression. On Tuesday, I got the chance to sit in on a meeting with a neighborhood association who shall not be named. I am censoring the full name because I do not want my blog to affect my organization’s future relationship with the neighborhood association. However! I was at the meeting because one of their events takes place on the same day and time as our fundraiser. So, our goal is to work together and support one another. One of the association’s members asked whether one of the locations of their event was handicap accessible, a question that should always be asked. I was shocked, though, that instead of a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response, one of the association’s members made a comment to the effect that handicapped people would not attend the tour, anyhow. He thought it was funny, but I was really turned off. Fortunately, some board members corrected him because isn’t that what community is? Holding each other accountable for our actions and words?

I had a better experience though on Thursday, when I visited some of the local businesses that I was trying to recruit as sponsors for the fundraising event. I took a quick trip to Parsons Ave (which is a 3 minute drive from Central Community House) to meet personally with them. I visited 39Below Frozen Yogurt and met the owner Carolyn about preparing mini-sundae samples as well as coupons for the event. Then, I walked down to Corner Stone Craft Beer and Wine to discuss with Theresa about donating a growler gift set to the fundraiser’s raffle. I definitely enjoyed meeting with them in person rather than the constant email and phone call communication, especially when their establishments are a 3 minute drive from Central Community House! In my past event planning experiences, i rarely get to meet personally with the people behind the businesses I am collaborating with. So, meeting Carolyn and Theresa was refreshing and reminded me that business transactions don’t have to be absent of human connection and community.

Another week full of learning at Homeport!

I am really starting to see first hand how housing plays a key role in all aspects of a person’s life. Housing stability can ensure job stability, higher school performance, better health, and more. Each day I learn more about the importance of providing stable and supportive housing, and grow in my passion for alleviating this pressing issue.

I started the week with a meeting with one of Homeport’s property management partners. Homeport builds affordable housing developments, but then passes on the day-to-day management duties to three different companies. The meeting was focused on collecting the necessary data from the management company to conduct the eviction analysis, but I learned much more outside of that. The manager we met with explained how the company tries their best to not evict tenants, but are often forced to. Evictions can happen for many reasons; some of the primary being non-payment, property damage, crime, drugs, over occupancy, and health code violations. In many of these cases, the property manager or landlord is required by law to evict a tenant. There are also many circumstances where a tenant isn’t actually evicted, but is still forced move out. Affordability issues often arise, and a tenant will leave before they receive an eviction notice. A resident may become a victim of a violent crime, pushing them out of the property with nowhere else to go. A woman and her children may flee their home to escape domestic violence. Hearing from the property manager changed how I understood home stability. Preventing an eviction is merely one facet of creating stable housing, and understanding the other reasons people leave their homes is crucial to understanding how to support permanent housing.

I also had the opportunity to attend eviction court hearings with one of Homeport’s property managers. Each case was roughly 5 minutes or less, and in those few minutes people lost their homes. Seeing eviction court proceedings gave even more meaning to the work Homeport does and the work that I am doing analyzing eviction prevention strategies. I can read statistics on how many people are evicted each year or how many children live without a home, but it’s hard to truly grasp those figures until seeing an exhausted mother in the court room with her three kids, awaiting a decision that will ultimately leave them homeless.

I’m learning more and more about these tragic situations, and the incredible work Homeport does to help. While learning about and facing these issues can be tough, there is hope. There is hope in the passion that drives everyone who works with Homeport, and there is hope in the difference that Homeport makes in someone’s life each day. I’m excited to be contributing to this work and to continue learning about what all of us can do to help.

Until next week,

-Caroline Corona

Greetings! My second week at the Hoover YMCA Park has flown by and I feel like I’m really in the swing of things as it comes to close. I’ll just share a few of the highlights from this week.

I was able to help out with a field day organized for Enchanted Care camp kids at the park. It was great to be outside and active, and several other YMCA employees came out to assist with the kids. I enjoyed getting to meet them and hear about their experiences at different branches of the Y. Early in the morning, during the setup, we encountered a huge rat snake (we think) in the middle of one of the pathways. We were concerned about having kids in the area with a snake nearby, but luckily our resident snake whisperer, Kevin, was around to coax it into the woods and to safety.

On Thursday we had about 30 volunteers come out to the garden and I got my first experience with volunteer coordination. This mostly involves helping to check people in, documenting their work in the garden, and keeping track of their hours via the Mid-Ohio Foodbank’s Volunteer Hub. The Volunteer Hub is an amazing resource for nonprofits working within their network, so I’ve been familiarizing myself with all of its functions and tools as well as keeping track of new volunteer sign ups.

I’m in the beginning stages of planning a fundraiser for the Learning Garden involving the soon to be finished kitchen space in the Hoover Haven, a cabin structure near the greenhouse. The renovation is scheduled to be done by the end of June and the product will be a great community space for bringing the produce from the garden to meals on a table. I’m hoping to bring a local chef out to Hoover to give a cooking demonstration to participants who will also get to tour the garden. Below are a few photos of the Hoover Haven in its current state. I’ll be posting photos of the progress on our social media and in our weekly newsletter.

I am nearing the end of my second week at CMA and while I reflect on the last five days, I have learned most about the people I am working with and the places I am working in. My workplace is in the CMA studio – a room filled with paper covered tables, endless supplies, and creative people. Rachel Silva, Studio Programs and Outreach Coordinator, has spoken to me this week about the role that the studio plays here at the museum. It is a space where outrageous ideas are welcomed and where, “Yeah! Let’s try it” is encouraged.

One of the mantras recited here is that creativity is like a muscle and therefore it needs exercised and practiced. Everyone has creativity and it comes in many forms. To think like an artist, one must: play, reflect, collaborate, experiment, observe, accept ambiguity, imagine, and be curious.

One of my favorite programs run in the studio is, Open Studio. All ages are welcome and participants join on a drop-in basis free of charge with admission to the museum. In Open Studio, a big idea is explored by participants by creating work from a group of curated materials. I think it is very important for families to have a space to work through problem and develop solutions with one another.

This Monday is my first Summer Art Workshop (SAW) and I cannot wait. I will be coordinating for teaching artist, Mark Ebarhardt for his workshop titled, “Marvelous Beasts and How to Make Them”. He has exciting activities planned for the fourth and fifth graders who have signed up such as block printing, creating moving images, and creating artwork of monsters based on written or spoken descriptions. Stay tuned to hear about how my first week coordinating SAW goes! I anticipate fun photos documenting the week of exploring, learning, and creating.

See ya next week,

Chloe

Hey, you. Welcome to my second weekly update on my Summer Fellowship experience at DSC.

This week has included a lot of necessary moments of pause *heavy, deep breathing.* Being the Type-A poster child that I am, work tasks can become overwhelming. I like planners and lists. I especially like when things get crossed off in an orderly fashion. Well, the real world doesn’t have polished deadlines. Things change. Task A needs finished by 5 PM but OH NO! what about Task B that really should be finished by Noon? *heavier, deeper breathing.*

During our Fellow’s Learning Session this week, we discussed the importance of prioritizing. Advice was given on how to enter into each day assessing the important tasks that must be done first. With this in mind, I approached this week rolling with the punches. I made my schedule and hoped for the best.

On my drive to work one morning, I wanted to prepare myself for crossing off all the final to-dos of the week. I listened to an episode on the Getting Things Done podcast. I figured that should rally me up. The episode was called “Making Changes Stick” by David Allen. Allen discussed visualization techniques as a form of goal setting. He gave an example of a person going into a meeting envisioning it being unproductive, which causes the outcome to be unproductive. If the same person goes into the same meeting envisioning productivity, the outcome will be productive. Nothing can become reality unless it is first envisioned. This method was even applied to train Olympic athletes. Research showed the ultimate ratio of success being 70% visual training and only 30% physical training (Allen).

Ever heard of fake it til’ you make it? Yeah, it really works. Things didn’t happen this week in the order I had hoped. Arrows were drawn all over my weekly schedule. I even had to work from home one day due to illness. But you know what? That is okay. Everything got done. I envisioned the result, and it became the outcome.

– Karlee H.

Allen, David. (Producer). (2017, June 16). GTD [Audio podcast].
Retrieved from http://itunes.apple.com

Week 2 has been a whirlwind! After getting acquainted with the House and the services that it offers, this week I have been busy digging right into my major projects for the summer. I began by reading over several communications plans, which provided me with a template for the plan that I will be creating next week, and I created some strategic communications goals for the Vehicle Donation Program that I am working on. Aspects of the plan that I and the rest of the Marketing and Communications team come up with will be implemented both locally and nationally, which is very exciting!! I also got a lot of experience with data analysis this week, as I looked at RMH’s marketing information on CSA Today and created a document highlighting the leading media/interpersonal sources that cause people to donate vehicles as well as the most prominent locations for donors by neighborhood and zip code. Though finding percentages and analyzing data isn’t really my favorite thing in the world, this task became a lot more meaningful when I recognized the impact that it would make. Knowing exactly which neighborhoods our most frequent donors live in will allow us to direct our communications plan accordingly to strategically target those areas. It is amazing how much work goes into creating a strategy for these kinds of programs! After the analysis, I was able to meet with my supervisor, Ryan, to go over the strategic goals that I have created, and they will be integrated into my communications plan next week!

I have also really enjoyed continuing to tag along at different events and learn about other aspects of the organization and the families that it serves. This week, I attended a brainstorming session for the pop tab fundraising program, which was very interesting because it allowed me to compare and contrast that program with the program that I am working with. The pop tab program is bigger than you might think-the house receives hundreds of thousands of them every year and the money from the recycled metal goes right back into the mission of serving children and families. (On that note, friendly reminder: save your pop tabs for Ronald McDonald House!!) I also enjoyed some meals in the dining room with the families this week, which was an awesome experience. It was so cool to sit back and observe the guests who are here from all walks of life and how they are able to come together for meals multiple times a day, and it truly resembles one big family.

In addition, I had the opportunity to help edit a proposal for a company that is considering partnering with RMH about what that partnership might look like. I got to work with Lynne, the graphic designer, to re-vamp the visual pieces of the proposal and tap into my creative side, which was a lot of fun.

The end of the week was also awesome again-this morning began with a delicious breakfast served by staff members and reporters from NBC 4, who work very closely with the House and support its events all the time. After breakfast, I received a lei to wear-just because it’s Friday-from my co-workers Lynne and Steph (who are a lot of fun to work with by the way) at the office space that we affectionately call “the beach”, hung out with the Henry, the labradoodle therapy dog, and enjoyed my second “Food Truck Friday” which involved some Graeter’s ice cream and a live band. This is a pretty cool place!!

-Courtney

I cannot believe I am already finished with my second week of working with the Grange Insurance Audubon Center! The time truly has flown by *bird pun intended*. This week started off with a trip to the Scioto Gardens, a native plant haven where we found Joe Pye Weed, Salvia, and other luscious greens to fill the gardens with. The plants were awesome, but I especially loved Bailey, a beautiful golden retriever who followed me around the entire time and definitely knew each plant by name (or bark).

It has been amazing learning about all of the different plants that are native to Ohio and the important role that each one of them plays in helping ensure a thriving ecosystem. I am a passionate advocate for wildflowers of all kinds and it is exciting to recognize certain types when I am on a bike ride, run, or even driving and notice a native plant growing alongside the road. I would not necessarily consider myself an avid birder, but I am gaining a greater appreciation for birds because they truly are an indicator of a healthy ecosystem. If there are no birds, that means there are no bugs for them to eat, which is a result of a lack of foliage which directly impacts our air and water quality (I could go on and on about how fascinating our planet is…).

Another exciting part of this week was getting to know my coworkers better. My freshman year of college, I was constantly seeking out new friendships as I loved meeting people from all over the world with all types of backgrounds and interests. As I settled into my Junior and Senior year, I had my comfortable group of friends and realize now that I became very complacent in getting to know people. Working at a place like Grange Audubon is wonderful because it feels like Freshman year all over again, with new faces and stories! Pictured below is Katie, a MetroParks intern who shares my love for the outdoors and my amateur birder status. It has been a treat getting to know her and I am excited to get to see her and my other coworkers every day!

Thanks Grange Insurance Audubon Center for taking me under your wing this summer! *last of the bird puns, I promise*

Peace and trees,

Tori