H. Jini Valence
Educational Outreach Internship Final Report
The second half of my time as the Educational Outreach Intern went much
better than the first. In the first half failures in communication and missed
opportunities made my work frustrating and unsuccessful, but in April everything
started to fall into place. Lo was able to put together one event geared towards the
community, I scheduled two events for children, and we both collaborated on a
campaign for Whitman students back in February. Although not every goal was met,
this spring was still very successful for my internship and as a club in general.
One of the club’s main initiatives was to gain recognition in the eyes of ASWC
as its own club. In order to do this we had to define our mission. Our mission was
written to include both composting and food waste reduction. The educational
outreach intern’s job is to spread our mission. To do so, we rely on grants and funds
available through ASWC, namely, the Green Fund, and we also have applied for the
OLEF to receive funds. Our Green Funds are going towards equipment for our use in
the shed, but the OLEF funds went towards our new composting bike for off-campus
compost pick up. We received money for a bike that we can use to collect compost
and deliver to the SAW plot and the Organic Garden. Now that the bike and trailer
are here and painted, it will be a great way to reach out to upperclassmen this fall.
The structure of the organization is very democratic. We take turns leading
the meetings and spend most of the meeting giving updates on individual projects.
Every member is in charge of bottom-lining a certain project and work is well
distributed. While this method allows every member to be a leader, it might not be
as efficient. The updates take a lot of time and we still send several emails a week
with even more updates. Clearly, the group is making leaps and bounds regularly,
but our meeting time might be made more useful if we relied on emails for all
individual updates. Then our meeting time could be used for larger group projects
and forming our group’s identity more thoroughly. Our group works so well because
people are enthusiastic, offer ideas to other members, and are self-motivating;
things get done. The Compost Club, as an ASWC approved club, will have officers
this coming year, which will help reduce redundancy and keep us moving towards
our goals.
As for my specific responsibilities, I was in charge of two events in the spring
months. The first was “Stories from the Garden,” which took place at the Walla Walla
Public Library. I met Liz George, the Children’s Librarian, in early April and she
immediately seemed enthusiastic about our club and offered to co-host a “storytime” with us. It was very easy to plan and was very well attended. Myself and a
couple volunteers made mud cups (pudding, oreos, gummy worms) and set up a
corner in the library full of books about worms. We brought a five-gallon bucket
with some compost and worms for the kids to see, which they loved! And we read
stories like “Tops and Bottoms” and “Diary of a Worm.” At the end we had kids draw
gardens and worms, abandoning the original idea of making worm trails by
dragging marbles through paint on construction paper due to the mess. There were
several mothers at the library with their kids that had their own questions about
introducing worms to their composter. Most of them had just piles of compost and
yard waste in their yard and wanted to know if worms could be introduced. After
Danielle, Matt, and I talked to them, we decided that it would be smart to have more
Composter Open Houses and workshops geared towards people who already
compost. The interest and need is there in the community and we could do Open
Houses several times throughout a semester. It’d be a great way to share the
knowledge we’ve gained with others.
The second event is scheduled for May 17th, and it’s a visit from the
Sharpstein 2nd graders. After spring break, I emailed 3 different schools second
grade teachers asking if they were interested in a visit. One group had visited in the
fall under a different intern. In the email I introduced myself, explained my
internship, explained the group, and extended the invitation. The Sharpstein
students will only be here for an hour and in that time we will visit the shed (which
will have been cleaned before the visit!), talk about how we feed the worms and how
our composter works, talk about what is compostable, have some kind of creative
station, and maybe see the edible landscaping. With kids, as I learned at the library,
its important to think on your feet and be flexible.
I had a discouraging start to the internship. I was frustrated by people not
getting back to me and miscommunications, so I abandoned some project ideas. A
lot of the internship was trial and error; moving towards one idea to have it stopped.
Often a failed idea led me to another. I found I felt most rewarded when I was
willing to shift my ideas to what the group wanted or what was feasible. Quite a bit
of my time was spent trying to learn the ins and outs of our composter; it was
important to ask a lot of questions. I learned that previous Educational Outreach
Interns were my best resource; getting their notebooks and contacts meant less
wasted time trying to reinvent the wheel. They also have a better idea of how to run
events, and most of them are very happy to talk about their projects. I do wish we
had done more to target current Whitman students, but this was a big year for
Compost Club. We tried new ways to feed the worms, became a club, created a
compost bike program, and tried to learn new ways to harvest our castings. The
energy of the club was focused on making the worms happy and harvesting castings
successfully, not rallying the support of the college. In the fall I think it will be
important to reach out to our community a little more. This was a tremendous
learning experience and would highly recommend a Environmental Internship to
anyone.