This past Summer, Walk With Sally welcomed 5 new interns into our office. These interns worked with our program, development, and special events teams to learn different aspects of working within a nonprofit organization.
Program Internship
Kelly, one of our program interns, is going into her Senior year at Loyola Marymount University, majoring in Psychology. She wrote about her experience interning: I’ve learned new skills, met new people, and became more empathetic towards others. Coming in, I never expected this experience to impact my life so much more than it did in the three months I was here. Whether it was uploading match day documents to Salesforce or volunteering at the Kick-Off party for our annual White Light White Night fundraiser, it was an experience I was glad to be a part of. My assignments focused on projects that benefited mentees and their families. While I was here I was able to attend two match-days, where the mentee and the mentor meet for the first time. Experiencing what Walk With Sally does in person was very moving and very emotional. This taught me to listen and to spend time hearing people’s stories. This has taught me to be more empathetic towards others.
Everyone involved with Walk With Sally has been impacted by cancer. We all know someone who is currently battling, or has gone through cancer in the past. Our goal is to shine the light and bring some smiles to families who are dealing with a cancer diagnosis. A major assignment that I was in charge of was researching Los Angeles support groups and counseling programs that were designed for cancer patients and their families. While working on this assignment, I had the families I met in mind. What I want to come from this experience is that my work goes to good use. My final thoughts are that if you enjoy being involved in the community this is a great place to get started. This was my first time interning with a non-profit and I don’t think this will be my last. I enjoyed my time here and I decided that the non-profit sector is something that I want to pursue in my future endeavors.
Special Events Internship
Sean, one of our Special Events interns enjoying his time back at the beach between semesters at the University of Oregon, wrote the following about his internship experience: As a Communications and Special Events intern, I learned how important it is to collaborate as a team to succeed. The weeks leading up to our annual White Light White Night event involved lots of teamwork and unity to reach our goals. My fellow interns and I quickly learned that special events take much longer than you would expect. Selling tickets, organizing auction items, managing a budget and gaining sponsors were all essential parts of our event. This is all impossible to achieve without a strong team.
Not only that, working in events comes with a lot of ups and downs and some things don’t work out. Being resilient and exploring different solutions is something I found to be very important to achieve your objectives.
As an intern, I learned not to expect the same routine every day. This was one of my favorite parts of the internship. Whether it’s collaborating with sponsors, organizing auction items, or canvassing, each day kept you on your toes.
Special events can be stressful and intimidating, but finding time to smile and have fun is important. Getting to know everyone within the organization and having personal conversations all made my experience as an intern that much more enjoyable. This increased my motivation, task performance and made completing tasks more satisfying.
Overall, I learned to always go above and beyond in your work. Take every opportunity to learn and grow, hold yourself accountable and complete tasks promptly and accurately. By setting high standards, you’ll always encourage yourself to perform at your best.
Intern at Walk With Sally!
Want to learn more about what interning at Walk With Sally could look like for you? Contact us at [email protected]. We are looking for interns for each semester this year as well as Summer interns for 2020.
