Hey, everyone! So it’s been a few weeks since I began my internship with Amarillo Area Foundation and I’ve got to say that I’m thoroughly enjoying the experience. I definitely want to share a little bit about what’s been going on in that office of ours, but first, I’d like to talk about some goals I set for myself this summer.
There were three areas that needed to be covered: networking, communication, and leadership. It took some thinking, but I was able to come up with a goal for each area. In order to strengthen relationship-building and networking, I decided to work on my relationship with the other intern here at AAF, Dollie. I made it a goal to have at least three lunch/coffee dates with her so we could get to know each other. She’s very experienced with Ogallala Commons and has accomplished much in her life in terms of education and internships so I know any advice and guidance from her would be beneficial. So far, we’ve had a couple of fun outings and enjoyed some great food. For communication, I decided to set three milestone goals with Dollie and my supervisors and keep a log of updates on my progress. We just passed our milestone for the completion of our research and sat down for a meeting to make sure everyone is one the same page. Lastly, I decided that for my leadership goal I would meet, thank, and try to build a relationship with one of the maintenance crew members for this building. I strongly believe that everyone in an organization is of importance, and I wanted one of these individuals to feel like their work was being noticed. This has turned out extremely well. The man who helps in the office is named Luis Lopez and now he stops by to chat every once in a while.
As for the internship, it continues to be an enriching experience. We set a rather quick pace to get our work done with the intent to have our report and graphs ready to present by the end of July. At first, I was concerned about the time constraints and the vastness of the project, but we have hit our milestones and are on our way to piecing together the finished product: a report complete with snapshots of each county with information on food, housing, water, air, transportation, employment, healthcare, and other topics. Dollie and I divided and conquered these topics and have been working on a way to seamlessly put the information together in a way that makes it eye-opening and useful, like pieces to a puzzle. I’ve learned so much about the different components of each county and have found myself going down rabbit holes of data upon data simply because I’m fascinated by it. The strengths and weaknesses of each county are becoming clear, and I’m excited to get to share that information with an organization that strives to utilize those strengths and aid those weaknesses.
