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First Week

Hello! It’s me, BreAnn, again… My experiences as an intern with Stafford County Economic Development have so far been awesome!!!!  On my first day we went to Kiowa County Media Center and I learned more about videography and what will be expected of me for my video projects. (http://kwksmedia.org/) 

Last week we traveled to Kansas City to purchase kitchen and bathroom cabinets for the Launch Pad Business Incubator project that will be constructed later this year.  The business incubator will have an apartment on the top half of the building and an open floor plan that lends itself to a variety of business endeavors on the bottom.  These cabinets were purchased in order to allow for bicyclists from a national organization called Bike & Build (http://bikeandbuild.org/) to assemble them.  This is the second year Bike & Build has chosen to stop in Stafford County (their only stop in Kansas) to contribute a full days’ worth of volunteer hours to help with various Economic Development housing projects.  By assembling these cabinets, the group saved Stafford County Economic Development a couple thousand dollars that would have been spent on buying pre-assembled cabinets.  Bike & Build is a group of young adults who are riding bicycles across the U.S. and regional routes that stop to volunteer with various housing projects.

Bike & Build constructed the cabinets on June 21 in the afternoon, while in the morning they removed lathe and plaster from Gray’s Studio.  Gray’s Studio is on the National Historic Landmark registry and is located in St. John.   This building is in the process of restoration in order to become an area where artist who recently graduated from college can live while establishing their artwork. There will also be a museum area to showcase the history of the building and an area to have a retail gallery for both the resident artist and local artist to market their work.  

Some of my projects I will be working on are as follows: making a video promoting Stafford County and Stafford County Economic Development, making a video promoting Live Well Stafford County, organizing a photo contest to be hosted at the Stafford County Fairgrounds, as well as utilizing social media pages to promote Stafford County Economic Development. 

 Below is a photo of Bike and Build at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Business Incubator:

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Below is a photo of Bike and Build doing demo work at Gray’s Studio:

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