At the beginning of the CAPS Fellows process, I had no idea where I’d end up. I’m leaving for a year abroad in Germany in late August, so spending the summer closer to home was somewhat important to me. Besides joining an organization whose values matched my own and a group that I felt passionate about, being near Valpo was my only criteria. I came in for an interview and met Kris Pate, the Executive Director of the United Way of LaPorte County.

Fast forward a couple months. I’m just about done with my first 4 weeks at the United Way of LaPorte County. I’ve been at Valpo for 3 years now and I’ve been involved in numerous organizations. Yet I am still surprised every single day by what goes on in our Northwest Indiana community. I work in Michigan City and am astounded by the number of people whose only job is to improve the community in which they live. I’ve met so many people who go to work every day with the challenge of ending homelessness or providing every elementary school student with food or ending poverty. The most surprising thing is the amount of collaboration and communication between not-for-profit organizations in LaPorte County. These groups have realized that by pooling their expertise and resources, they can accomplish much more than if they just worked alone on their individual initiatives. The people who work for these different organizations are smart. They think quickly. They jump on new opportunities constantly. They learn and act and learn and act, constantly honing in on the best way to impact the community. These people change lives.

You may also be interested in what I’m doing, so I’ll give you a brief update on that. I’m working primarily with social media, public relations, and marketing. In the second week of working I was given the passwords to all of the social media accounts. The instructions? “Go. Learn.” Let me be clear, I am not a social media wizard. If I was, I would be way more popular. But I do possess the ability to learn. So that’s what I did. Tweeting daily was the first big task, but I figured that out rather quickly. Next was Instagram. I don’t know why United Way needs Instagram, but I personally like it and they had an account. The United Way of LaPorte County has an annual golf outing, so Charlie, a fellow intern and CAPS Fellow, and I started making short clips advertising the event. The United Way staff already had a handle on Facebook, so I just add content as needed. YouTube, on the other hand, was, and continues to be, a very different monster.

This is where I left. Imagine my comfort zone as a skyscraper. Now imagine that got onto the roof and, with a running start, jumped off. Now watch this video.

When I jumped out of my comfort zone, I didn’t land cleanly. You may have picked up on that during the course of the video. I did, however, have the chance to write an original rap, find music to put it to, and enlist Charlie to star in the production. Don’t worry, my lyrics aren’t copyrighted. In fact, I hope everyone starts singing about the 2-1-1 services offered in their area. This video is goofy and uncomfortable, but I’m broadening my horizons around what I’m able to do. The next video may not win an Oscar either, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be in the running for a Daytime Emmy.