non-profit – CA Work Experience Program

Last Day – Work Work Work

For my last day I needed to do so many more activities than what I did on the days before. I needed to finish the inventory, do more inventory and then finish the folders that we give to possible donors. The inventory took most of my day, 6 hours, while my folders took 2 hours – and I wasn’t even completely finished because we didn’t have enough items to put in the folders.

We of course had our daily meeting, and I had to do my final elevator pitch. Apparently I did really well, and when he asked a random question about my elevator pitch I answered correctly – these two weeks really brought me good luck. Since it’s my last day I will finally say what my elevator pitch is – “Curamericas is an organization that strives to save the lives of women and children in underprivileged communities”. Just a short phrase to hook people to ask more questions.

Besides that my nanny and her baby came to have lunch with me at Happy + Hale, it really made my day great.

That was my last day.

Day 3 – Creation & Ideation

Awww! I have my own desk now in, what I consider, EDCI’s own little Center of Community Engagement. I’m currently sharing the space with 6 other people, and I love how friendly everyone is. Not that I expected these people to be unfriendly, but it’s awesome to know that they are close with each other (as expressed through their collaborative banter.)

After having an hour and 15-minute-long college meeting with Ms. Sellers before arriving, I was honestly already exhausted, but thankfully I was assigned with a new task: finding activities/icebreakers for rising 3^rd-5^th graders and high schoolers. For the younger kids, I had no trouble compiling a list. For the older kids, however, I wasn’t too sure – how can we keep them engaged in the activity? What’s considered “cool” and “lit”, two seemingly opposite terms but they really mean the same thing? It took a bit longer, but I found a few I hope will work. This definitely helped me in terms of my own activity planning as next year’s Chief Student Diversity Officer. Icebreaker at the first Coexist meeting? Maybe!

I had lunch again at the East Durham Bake Shop; it’s so lovely! I also bumped into (almost literally) into Dr. Mc, who was there taking a break before his visit to EDCI.

Throughout the afternoon, I met with program coordinators and other team members, discussing the summer plans. I met with Nicky and Dr. Mc as well, and I’m looking forward to keeping EDCI in mind as we work on aspects for the Community Engagement class.

Summer camp is very close, and we need to provide food for the kids. One project I’ll be working on for the next few days is contacting vendors for food donations. I will also create flyers, detailing the Summer Lunch Program at Maureen Joy Charter School (my middle school) and other activities that’ll take place there. Contacting people is something I feel I’m fairly good at already, but that’s via email. Calling people will be… interesting, but I know that I’ll be fine; I have a script!

Day 7 – More Tasks

Today, I started out trying to finish the descriptions of each of the inventory items. This all though it sounds simple, took – hours. And I mean hours. Reasoning because I needed to look through our company dropbox for past descriptions of items, however, most items didn’t have past descriptions – so I needed to scour the internet for descriptions about items from places like Guatemala or Sierra Leone.

After about 5 hours of doing this – I finished and it was time for our daily meeting. It was the same old same old until I was told that I needed to do 5 more tasks, which was a tall order especially since I only have tomorrow left. However I already got 2 tasks done, and I guess the last 3 will be finished tomorrow. Besides that I nailed my elevator pitch again.

I think my favorite part of the day though was I actually connected and talked to the older interns today. It’s usually pretty awkward talking to them because of the fact that there’s such an age gap, but today we had a nice conversation, and it was pretty great.

For the rest of the day I just spent completing my tasks, and that was it.

Day 6 – More Inventory

Firstly, on Tuesday, Ms. Eason came to visit myself and Kaela, and asked about our work so far. She sat in on our daily intern meeting. And thankfully today when Andrew was asking me questions about my elevator pitch – I stated them correctly. Perfect day. In the meeting I basically explained how I was continuing to finish the inventory, and how I needed to send my translations of the website to a fluent spanish speaker.

After the meeting was over Ms. Eason left and I continued doing inventory. Today it was much more work, because Mr. Herrera stated that he wanted me to redo the work I did and separate it by price. So that was most of my day. Thankfully though I got to watch my new favorite tv show “The Society” while doing it.

After about 4 hours of inventory I got to go to Whole Foods and get some sushi, edamame, granola and sparkling water. It was VERY good. But after I ate my lunch I needed to find descriptions of each inventory item. Which is still going on because it’s a tall task.

That was my day. I did inventory the whole day.

Day 2 – Sweets and Games

Thankfully, I did not spend my entire day in front of technology. More importantly, I did not have to think about or use Amazon.

I spent the morning taking inventory of the beautiful t-shirts for EDCI’s summer camps and other programs; I even met a rising senior at Duke while doing this! As a rising senior myself (but for high school, obviously and hopefully), we had interesting discussions about our futures. I had to use Excel again, but it did not crash on me! Rebecca, who oversaw me today, felt guilty for assigning this task and promised I’d be doing cooler things next week. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

After folding, it was lunchtime. My new friend and I went over to the East Durham Bake Shop, a fairly new addition to the East Durham Neighborhood; their stuff is amazing. I had a savory pie and a blueberry muffin! EDCI workers love going there because of the distance (literally a 2-minute walk), and it’s a nice spot to get some work done!

When we returned, my friend was assigned to do some work on Excel, and I organized different games for 3^rd-5^th graders from the donation piles from the Holiday Drive EDCI hosted. These games are for their free time during the summer camps. There were at least 30 puzzles (do kids still play with puzzles???), ranging from 20-500 pieces, and I still have more stuff to go through tomorrow. From UNO to Legos to Candyland, I think the variety of activities I’ve found so far will keep the kids occupied. If not, I hope naptime is an option.

Day 1 – Why EDCI?

EDCI, short for the East Durham Children’s Initiative, is a nonprofit organization in Durham. This organization is dedicated to the betterment of the youth and their families through academic support programs, health & wellness activities, career development workshops, among many more. As a 5^th grader, I participated in their first outreach programs, and have appreciated their work since.

Fun fact: as a member of the first cohort, I had the opportunity to meet Michelle Obama when she came to NC in 2012. Below is me hugging her:

(https://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20120919/michelle-obama-campaigns-in-battleground-state)

As it was a Monday (everyone loves Mondays), things were overall pretty chill. Nicky, the Chief Operating Officer, directed me to work with Emily, an intern. Right now, they are preparing for the STEAM Summer camp that’ll take place at Eastway Elementary School beginning late June. With this, supplies must be ordered, but no one wants to spend a ton of money, so I had the honor of researching the deep dark web and its subcategories for alternatives.

What I’m saying is: I spent most of my time on Amazon.

Amazon is just… a lot. There are so many different versions of so many different things that I often found myself wanting to just… not. I also had an EXCEL-lent time using Excel, which totally didn’t crash on me 4 times. I calculated a range of products, trying to find the best deal out there.

Despite these struggles, and with my decent research skills, I ultimately found alternatives for 11 products, saving them over $1,000!!!

If only I could save $1,000 (and then some) for my new phone.

Day 5 – Oof Inventory

Today was a big one. It was finally inventory day. I must say – I kinda enjoyed it; I love organizing things and actually feeling like I’m working, whereas typing on my computer makes me feel like I’m just sitting all day. But I will say, the amount of inventory I have to do is – a lot. I’m taking inventory of every trinket or bag we’ve gotten from each country for auctions or giveaways. In total there’s at least 500 items. Plus, I need to put tags on every single one, which is definitely the hardest part. However, it was quite relaxing, and the older intern and I decided to watch a show while doing it so it was quite fun.

Besides that during my lunch break I went to lunch at chopt, and went to Lululemon because I had extra time and needed workout clothes for my cycling class after work.

It was a good day to be honest. I felt like I was actually useful, and I did things I wanted to do. 🙂

Day 4 – Simple

Friday was the day to just continue the work that I was currently working on. I needed to keep working on the website and then we had another daily meeting at 2:30. The daily meeting brought us new jobs to do. Mr. Herrera wanted me to send the work I’ve done for the website to a fluent spanish speaker to see what they thought, and then he wanted me to start doing inventory Monday. My inventory would include counting how much of giveaway products we have and putting tags on each one. I will keep you updated about how many we have. Myself and Kaela went to happy and hale for lunch again, but besides that, that was my whole day.

Day 3 – Short but Helpful

Today was my third day at Curamericas Global, and the work was definitely hard. My task is a continuation of yesterday of translating the website to Spanish. I actually finished quite a lot for the time I had.

I arrived a minute late, but still no one was there. Once our boss arrived everyone once again piled into the conference room and sat til our morning meeting. It didn’t start till much later today, but we still were able to share what we were working on. It was the same old, same old, yet Mr. Herrera decided to bombard us with random questions to see how much we knew. It was kind of nerve racking. Scratch that. I was very nerve racking. I’m not good at coming up with answers on the spot, and Mr. Herrera was really testing me. But luckily, I was prepared with answers – this time.

Today we also had an intern lunch for every single intern working right now – college, high school and adults. We got mediterranean food, which was nice. However, I sadly had to leave early due to a doctors appointment at 2:15. But while I was leaving work, I did see a very cute dog.

That was my Thursday.

Day 2 – Only Spanish I Guess

Today was a hard one – that is safe to say. Although I was scared that I would arrive late today, I actually arrived early – meaning I had extra time to talk to Mr. Herrera.

Yesterday, he found out I’ve been to Argentina and I “speak” Spanish, so this morning he decided to give me a new task rather than just learning about Curamericas. My new task is translating the whole website to Spanish. The. Whole. Website. Safe to say, I am unsure when I will be able to finish this task – I (un)fortunately have gotten done with 3 pages over an 8 hour period. Not nearly close to the 50 pages I need to finish (there might be more, I haven’t counted yet). There’s also the worry that I’m not using correct grammar in my Spanish. But, since I’m just translating the website and there is bound to be words I’m unsure of – spanishdict is ok in this situation. In some ways though, I’m quite thankful for this new task. I feel like I’m being a lot more useful than I would’ve been by just reading about Curamericas. And by reading the website, in order to translate it, I’m basically reading about Curamericas. So it’s two tasks in one.

Just like yesterday, we had our daily intern meeting. Except today it was just a quick overview of what everyone was doing. Then it was back to work. I can’t say that we do much else than sit in our conference room and stare at a computer screen, but that is basically the job I guess. And of course, we got to go get lunch. Today I picked juice keys to get an açaí bowl and a coffee, while Kaela picked Chipotle. Basically just a bunch of driving to different places.

That was my Wednesday!

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