Today is Day of Caring and so I now consider my internship complete! Lucky for me I didn’t have class until 2 today so I got to go to the celebration lunch I organized. The lunch was at St. Vincent’s atrium (so nice of them!) and everything looked great. There were different types of wraps, cookies, chips, etc and we decorated the tables with apples and candy which was a nice finishing touch.  But the best part about today for me was seeing all the volunteers. It was a great feeling to see them happy and it made me feel like all the work I did this summer was worth it. Today really couldn’t have gone any better. The weather today was PERFECT for Day of Caring and all the volunteers loved working outside. I am also proud to say that we beat last year’s record of number of volunteers and agencies who participated! We don’t have the exact count but there were over 100 projects and around 1,400 volunteers. Everyone can check out the United Way of Central Massachusetts website for more details about the event and to see tons of pictures from today!

P.s. I would like to say thank you to the rest of the United Way staff for being excellent helpers today and for giving me great guidance this summer. I couldn’t have done it without you!

I wanted to give a shout out to United Way’s Summer Youth Program because this week does not only mark the end of the program but the end of Alex’s internship (the other Holy Cross intern).  Her job this summer was very similar to mine but focused on teens. Throughout the summer she organized projects and recruited teen volunteers to help make a difference in the Worcester community. Pretty cool summer job if you ask me!  On Monday my boss let me go support Alex in one of her last projects for the summer. Let me tell you it wasn’t a typical workday! We went to a nonprofit agency called the Community Harvest Project which a farm in North Grafton. They came up with this great idea to plant all types of fruits and vegetables and then donate everything they harvest to local food banks. Last year they were able to distribute over 170,000 lbs. of fresh fruits and vegetables to hunger relief organizations. How crazy is that?!The most surprising part is that everything is harvested by volunteers! There’s always staff there to guide the volunteers and keep track of what needs to be done but volunteers are the ones that do the majority of the farming. There’s always something that needs to be done so they even have drop in hours for volunteers. When we went we picked squash and eggplant. The staff showed us how we were supposed to cut the vegetables correctly and then we got straight to work. Never thought I would be the farming type but I really got into it! The Community Harvest Project has a Day of Caring project so I might have to just sign myself up for that….

I am by no means a food critic but since I’ve been in Worcester for the summer I feel like I have a pretty good sense of where to go for food.  Everyone’s gone to, or at least heard of Chop House, Via and the Sole Proprietor but these are places that are just as good and affordable! Here are my awards for best food in Worcester….

Mexican-Mezcal Tequila Cantina

Dessert-Brew City (you can make your own smores!) Close runner up: Sweet

Bread (never underestimate good bread!)-Elsa’s Eatery

Italian-Leo’s Ristorante

Pizza-Corner Grille

Froyo-Berry fusion

Fast food-Chipotle

Best burger- Brew City

Breakfast-Miss Worcester

Chinese- Nancy Changs

Apps- Funky Murphys

Sushi- Baba Sushi

Byob-Tortilla Sams

Date place- Flying Rhino Cafe & Watering Hole

So the brochures I talked about last time have been mailed out and so have the brochures I made for volunteers. I am officially a pro at Microsoft publisher…but really. Don’t worry my eco friendly followers I have a PDF version too.

Other than brochures I’ve spent a lot of time working on this side project I want to do for Day of Caring. When I was looking at past Day of Caring information I realized that in the past there were barely any college students or participants under 18 involved. This is was a complete surprise to me. Day of Caring is on a weekday so I figured the main reason younger people can’t participate is because they are in school. Obviously I couldn’t change the date of Day of Caring so I began brainstorming how to get students involved. Here’s what I came up with:

I decided that for this year’s Day of Caring I want to have a competition between all the schools in Central Mass (every school that decides to participate of course). Because Day of Caring is in September, right around when school starts, I thought it would make most sense if the schools competed by collecting school supplies. This way, students can still participate even if they don’t have time to volunteer. The supply-drive will lead up to Day of Caring. On the  actual Day of Caring, each school will way what they collected and whatever school district has the heaviest collection is the winner. BUT that is not all!  I added a rule that for every person that actually goes out and volunteers, one pound can be added to the school’s final weight. I’m calling the contest “United Weigh”…get it? United Way…I’m so punny.

Besides work I’ve continued hanging out with my new friends I made here and am planning some trips for the upcoming weekends! I have to work on Fourth of July so hopefully we do something fun after…

I’ve been super busy but I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on how I’ve been doing! I’ve been having a lot of fun these past 2 weeks prepping for the event. I’ve made brochures and been sending them out to all the different types of agencies in Central Mass. I learned all sorts of things with this project like how to create labels and use Microsoft publisher. I had no idea what I was doing at first when I started the brochures but I actually got really into the design and am really proud of what I came up with. Next time I will add a link so you can see the brochure and I will tell you about another idea I came up with for Day of Caring that I am really excited to start working on…I’ll post soon!

I’m done with my first week of interning so I thought I would give an update on how I’ve been doing since I got to Worcester. I am currently living in Carlin (typically a dorm for Juniors during the school year). I was planning on staying here until the 15^th which is when the lease for my house for next year begins but so far Carlin has been great. I am living in a 6-man so I am never lonely and I have a single so I also have my privacy. I am also happy because there are more people staying here this summer than I thought. People are here for a bunch of other things, not just for internships. In my suite alone there’s a girl here for research, a girl working for ROTC, etc. They all seem great so who knows, I might not move into my house after all. Another advantage to living on campus is the free wifi and cable…I’m gonna have to weigh my options. But living at college over the summer has its perks. I’m on the field hockey team at school so it is really nice being so close to the turf and track for workouts. I’ll also be playing a lot of pick up field hockey at Harvard. The only thing I’m gonna need to figure out is what I’m going to do about food! I’ve been eating out with people every night which is WAY out of an intern’s budget! I think it might be time to learn to cook (for the people that know me please don’t laugh).

But anyways I am super pumped about my first week at United Way! The first couple days were really just an overview of everything I will be doing this summer. I had to watch a couple training interviews and research what the other interns had done for Day of Caring. This wasn’t too fun but the last few days my job was to start thinking about new ideas for the event. This part was so fun! I had no idea when I applied for this internship that I would practically be the only one involved in organizing this event…I figured I would be part of a committee or something but nope it’s just me and my advisor. It’s kind of nerve racking being in charge of something but it’s also really cool because I’ve never really organized something like this before. It’s also really cool that I’m working alone because that means I get to make a lot of the decisions. I actually already came up with a new idea that I am really excited about. I have a meeting about it on Monday so if I get the “approval” I will tell you guys all about it the next time I blog!

Other than my work I am really happy with the people I am working with. There’s another Holy Cross intern, Alexandra Noonan, who has the same advisor as me but is working on a different project. They gave us our own room and our desks are right next to each other. This and wearing work clothes everyday makes me feel so official haha. I had never met Alex before starting work here (one misconception about Holy Cross is that you know everyone!) but she seems awesome and I think working next to her all summer is going to be really fun.  Besides her, my advisor and everyone else that work at United Way seem like they are really great people so far. Everyone has been exceptionally friendly. The President even bought us all pizza from Corner Grille (yum!) on Friday.

I’m really gonna get a lot out of this internship if I don’t starve to death first!

Hello everyone!

I figured I would write my first blog entry because in less than a week I will be starting my first day of work at United Way Central Mass. I can’t believe I am heading back to Worcester so soon. It feels like just yesterday I was stressing about my cover letters and interviews! I guess everything feels sped up in college though. I’m still in disbelief that I am going to be a senior next year. Where did the time go? How do I only have one more year until I am in the “real world”? Yikes.

When I applied/was accepted to Holy Cross’s Summer Internship Program. I thought it was going to be much simpler than it ended up being. Although getting into the program is the first step and seems like a major feat, you realize that even though you got into the program you still have to compete against all your other peers in the program to get an actual internship. I applied to several of the internship positions that had to do with communications because that is the field I am most interested in going into. I also paid attention to the job descriptions on the SIP website because I had already done the whole non-paid busy work thing for an internship and was looking to be more involved in whatever I was doing.

I first applied to the United Way internship with very little knowledge about what they do besides the fact that they are the nonprofit my dad’s company donates to every year. Secretly I think the only reason the name rang a bell is because I see their commercials all the time after NFL games. However, when I heard back from them I decided to do some research on United Way so I would know what to talk about during my interview and realized what a great opportunity it would be for me. If you don’t know what United Way is about please visit their website to learn about their mission.

My main job for my 10-week internships is helping plan their annual Day of Caring Event that takes place in September. It is such an amazing event and I am VERY excited to get started! Not only am I pumped to help make this event happen, I feel by working for United Way this summer I will get a better idea for what I want to do after graduation. I’ll keep you updated on how my internship goes. I have a feeling this summer is gonna fly by!