Category: Internship Posts

During my third week at The Ecology Center, I worked on finishing the PowerPoint about food sourcing in Orange County, California. I then had a talk with one of the team members about grant writing. I spent the rest of the day researching grant writing types and looking at sample writings. I also had a talk about a specific grant mid-year report. I looked at the grant proposals for the Ecology Center as well as other grant mid-year reports. During the call, we discussed what the grant did and how to write a mid-year report. I also spent time researching different environmental and farming films for the film series in early July. I wrote up some descriptions and sent them in. I helped with the pizza night again and helped prepare for the evening, make the pizzas, and heat them up. I also spent time packing up the nourishing neighbors boxes for distribution later in the week for families that are underserved by supplying them with organic, locally-sourced foods.

-Isabelle

The second week at The Ecology Center started off with a call with someone on the team. We discussed different avenues of work and other things for that week. I started to do some research on non-profits in the area regarding food insecurity. I did some research of other evident-based articles regarding population health and engagement as well as some information about agriculture, A field trip came to visit, and I listened to one of the activities. I helped with organizing the food for the farm stand like making teas and olive oil. I helped the culinary team prepare food for the pizza night as well as prepared for the night overall. On Saturday, some high schoolers came to visit the farm and we did a farm tour and some work in market garden as well as picking the flowers to increase their growth. I then organized a list of high schools’ current organizations and club surrounding ecology, farming, and the environment and some point-of-contacts that could be useful to encourage more engagement. The week ended with putting the information I researched the previous week regarding the school food sourcing and individual school gardens into a presentation.

-Isabelle

I began my first week at The Ecology Center as a community health intern. In the beginning of the week, I started off meeting the people who work on the farm as well as farm tour of the 28 acres of land. I am learning about the regenerative agriculture and its impacts it has on the community, the environment, and the individual health. I have been conducting research on food sourcing for schools as well as participating in the community outreach of the farm including you pick strawberry festival and home-made pizza night. I have also been working with the community outreach team with their work in Nourishing Neighbors which are boxes of food from the farm and other local farm products that are given to community partners to distribute to people in the community. The Ecology Center has a strong team of diverse thinkers who strive to educate and feed the community.

-Isabelle Koscik