My first two months here at the Grünewald Guild have flown by. As the hospitality intern for summer programming, I have been busy getting the campus ready for guests and creating a welcoming and comfortable environment during their stay. I order supplies, assign weekly responsibilities to staff, and oversee the turnover of guest housing each weekend. Since programming is at half capacity for the summer, the groups have been smaller, allowing us to form close connections during shared meals, classes, and free time. The biggest change over the past two weeks has been switching from almost completely unstructured days without guests, to having a daily schedule with meals and activities. This has shifted my daily work routine and my timeline for getting things done. Instead of being able to plan out my day according to my most productive times and the specific tasks for the day, I am guided by […]

Going into CAPS, I had the assumption that most if not all of the placements would be remote, i.e. work from home. While this work style offered flexibility of location giving me the opportunity to travel and work anywhere I had Wi-Fi, I was worried about the potential lack of connections to the organization and staff. How could I form meaningful relationships and create a positive change if I was never in the same place with the people I was working toward that change with? To my surprise, after being selected as a fellow, many of the placements were in person or had in-person components. Going into the organization interviews, I didn’t let the pros or cons of either modality of work skew my opinion of the nonprofit organizations. Rather, I was focused on two somewhat simple things I am looking for in my future career: connection to the people […]

Writing this, I find myself over halfway through my internship at BallotReady. It is hard to believe! There is much left to do, but there has been so much I have learned since my last entry. BallotReady provides a wide variety of learning opportunities. Recently, we were introduced to entering officeholder media pages into TAFT Satellite, BallotReady’s database created by their engineering team. In addition, our data team supervisors have been hosting Excel and SQL “jams” or learning sessions. SQL is the programming language used within their databases. As a Global Service major, I have not had much experience with programming and databases. Therefore, these training sessions have been very helpful for me in expanding my set of hard skills as well as boosting my confidence in using them. We have also had the opportunity to watch and participate in lunch and learn sessions every week; thus far, my favorite […]

On June 30th, I visited LSSI’s Sterling Addiction Center, Sterling Group Home, and the Nachusa Lutheran Home campus, and I could not be more grateful to have the day trip that brought a lot of perspective to what I have been writing about. It would be no surprise to anyone that non-profit organizations can struggle, even in the simplest ways. But when you start to see these struggles in application, it really changes what you thought you knew. On July 14th, I visited Bethel Christian Church in south Chicago, delivering new and exciting books for LSSI’s Visits to Mom program where families of incarcerated women are taken on a 3 hour drive to their moms, friends, and daughters. I talked to the main coordinator and he opened up about his passion for the job, staying connected with the community, and being excited to push his innovative ideas further. Something that […]

Much has happened since my previous blog post. On a logistical end, my IT issues have been resolved and I have begun working more directly with Heartland clients. I find it especially difficult to articulate the vast array of feelings and thoughts that cross my mind when doing my work. There is awe at the strength of our clients for enduring countless struggles, all for the hope of a better life. Along with it, a deep sense of appreciation for the comparatively easy, coddled life I have. On a practical level, there are feelings of incompetence whenever I make a phone call and stumble across language barriers. Many of these individuals know 2 or more languages even before English, a truly outstanding feat as anyone who’s tried to learn a language knows. To complicate matters further, my work has not been near the caliber of a clinician, it has been […]

Ingenuity: The quality of being clever, original, and inventive. While I’d like to believe that I’ve always been clever, I can definitely say that my time so far working with Ingenuity Inc. has grown my skills in every definition of the word.  Ingenuity is a nonprofit organization that connects arts partners with Chicago Public Schools, as well as collecting and providing data on inequality and disparities throughout the system. As an intern with the Partnership and Learning department, I have been working on forging the connection between partners and the ever changing requirements of CPS. This year, the annual event for new partners has been revamped to include two other organizations: Communities In Schools of Chicago and the Chicago Literacy Alliance. My role has been a smattering of different tasks: finding speakers, creating social media posts, writing scripts, organizing the gist of the conference, and getting out of my comfort […]

My first experience in Austin Texas was sleeping on top of my luggage at the Austin International Airport. After 5 long hours of flying and 4 hours of layover, I eventually made it to Texas where I soon realized nothing was open yet and I had to stay at the airport until 9 in the morning. Thankfully, I had my book and lots of delicious coffee to get me through it. Checking into my apartment was fairly easy and went very smoothly. What I did not expect was a roommate. Do not get me wrong, I was happy to have a roommate; however, it would have been nice to know beforehand instead of thinking I walked into the wrong apartment room. All that considered, my roommate Dani is a really nice person who has helped me experience what it is like to live in Austin Texas. On June 3rd, I […]

As I prepare for my trip to Austin, Texas, where I will be spending one week of my internship in-person with Water to Thrive, I can’t help but reflect on all of the connections in my life that have helped get me here. My introduction to both the CAPS Fellowship and Water to Thrive organization started my freshman year of college while taking a required class for my Philanthropic Leadership & Service. Assuming that students attaining this minor were a target audience to introduce to the CAPS program, we had someone from the Institute for Leadership and Service present to our class about this fellowship opportunity. Being both a first-year and exploratory studies student, I was hesitant to apply for this opportunity, as I had little to no idea what I wanted to do when I was older. However, Madison Magiera, a classmate of mine, applied and was matched with […]