Final Post

Interning for Agape really helped get the feel of what a real job in Public Relations might be like. Even If it was only for a semester I learned a lot from the experience. Throughout the spring semester I worked on two major projects. The first project was re-designing their general informational pamphlet and making it look more modern and up to date. It was cool to see them displayed in the front lobby once they were finished. After the first pamphlet, my next project was to create additional more detailed pamphlets for their “Four Areas of Assistance.” Making Progress, Helping Hands, Joseph’s Storehouse and Life’s Challenges are the names of Agape’s programs that were founded to those in the community who need it. After all the pamphlets were finished, Deb (my advisor) would just have me work on data entry.  Working on data entry, I got a feel for what an office job may be like. Now that I am finished working with Agape, I am ready for my next job opportunity.

This summer I will be living and working in Ocean City Maryland. I went down the weekend of May 1^st to train for a photography job at Seacrets Bar and Grill. I ended up working two full days after training for a night and experienced what a day of work would be like. I’m excited to be in a totally new environment and meet a new group of people all sharing the same interests. Minoring in Art Studio, I focused mainly on photography so finding a job in the field will be very beneficial. During the summer I plan on applying for jobs in Public Relations once the season is over. My ultimate goal is to keep the job at Seacrets during the summer and work during the year for a Public Relations Agency. I am confident in my four years spent at Bloomsburg that they prepped me for what is to come in the future. 

Second Post

        After finishing up the first informational pamphlet and seeing the printed copies displayed in the front entrance , I felt I had accomplished something for Agape that would help them seek more clients. Soon after that project was done, I was presented with the next one. Amber who is very involved in dealing with clients seeking help as well as handling the donations and applications for those in need of something from Agape as an organization , has been working with me as an editor of the work I create. When presented with the idea of creating 4 more pamphlets each further explaining the different areas of assistance , I started drafting ideas for the layout. The four areas of Assistance included "Making Progress", "Helping Hands", "Joseph's Storehouse," and "Life's Challenges." All these were explained briefly in the main informational pamphlet but my job was to create four separate designs that went more in depth with information. I wasn't given much information  about how they wanted everything to be organized and laid out to work with in the beginning so I came up with my own ideas. Upon request, I came up with rough drafts of the four pamphlets that were consistent in following the layout of the main informational one which was my plan from the start, so everything worked out.  Since I am not at Agape every single day, it took me a total of two days to create four pamphlets with the information needed. After I showed Amber what i created so far, she critiqued my work and helped me with editing and how she wanted the lay out of the paragraphs to look. I soon adapted to the flow of how things were accomplished and learned that these couldn't be finished in one day and it would take a lot of printing before everything was final. For the past few weeks, since I posted in my last blog, I've been printing, editing, and designing these pamphlets until they are close to perfect.  Microsoft Word is the software I have been using since it works best for me and is most reliable in my opinion. For the main pamphlet I had the older version as a guide to making an updated one which made it easier.
     As of right now, April 9,2015, they are almost finished as a whole and just waiting to be approved by the board.   So far I have learned a lot interning with Agape and everyone has been nothing but nice. They have encouraged my creativity in helping them better market what they stand for as a non-profit organization. They've been keeping me busy and are thankful for my contribution to their establishment. Since I am the youngest one their, I've made some adult friends that I can have casual conversations with about every day life as well as words of encouragement as a graduating college student. I know I will benefit from interning here when faced with job opportunities post graduation.

Below is an example of one of the four pamphlets.

My Spring Internship with the Danville School District

First Post, March 4, 2015:

I am the PR Chair for Bloomsburg's PRSSA Chapter and my job is to communicate with the Rotary Club and assist them with their events. Last semester, I went to a Rotary Club meeting with Dr. Magolis to share with them what PRSSA is and how we could help them. I was nervous but excited. I wanted to make a good impression on these professionals! After the meeting, Allan Schappert, the Danville School District school board president, approached me with an offer to be the PR/Marketing intern for the school district. He explained to me that this school was dying for some help to promote their school (which is one of the best in the country). He told me that people do not know how great of an education their children will be receiving while attending this school. He told me I would be working directly with the Superintendent and to get in contact with her. At first, I was a little unsure of this internship and what I would be doing but I got in contact with Mrs. Latorre to learn more about the position. I met with her and Dawn Brookhart, Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Technology for the school district. They seemed great and SUPER excited to have me on board! They told me they have a bunch of projects I can work on and were so excited to have a fresh perspective on things. They offered me the internship and I said I could start as soon as possible when I returned in the Spring. Luckily for me I do not have class on Tuesday or Thursday so that is when I attend my internship. My first official day was February 10th. I start at 8:30 am and it depends on the day when I end. 

The first project I worked on for Mrs. Latorre, was a wellness newsletter. She gave me all of the information she wanted to be in it, and I created a newsletter that was specific to their district (colors and such). It took me about a week and a half to perfect and another week for proofreading. It is now complete and beautiful!

During my first week, I visited the e-Learning Cyber academy with Mrs. Latorre and Mrs. Brookhart. They took me on a tour and explained to me what it was. "Danville’s launch of a new innovative online learning cyber academy in 2013 has proven to be a huge success, with 27 school district students who were able to remain a part of their graduating class and participate in school district sports and activities as full time Danville e-Learning Academy students for the 2013-14 school year. Seven of these students were graduating seniors and many were returning to the district from other cyber school providers, looking for a more personalized approach to their learning." I met Jennifer Gurski, Assistant Principal/ DASD Cyber Academy Director, and she was curious to hear my feedback. She asked me to do an audit of the e-Learning website. She wanted me to tell her what I thought from an outsiders perspective. I typed up a Microsoft Word document about what I thought and I sat down and shared my opinions with her. She was very grateful to have me help her out because she wants nothing but the best for her students. I suggested creating a blog/Facebook account/ Twitter account that could keep the parents as well as the students up to date with what is happening at the e-Learning Academy. It felt great to collaborate with her and give her some ideas on how to improve their website.

During the next few days, Mrs. Latorre had me create some different little things that she would be handing out to the teachers and staff in all the districts. For Valentine's day, they were having a snack stand with hot chocolate and such for all the staff. She had me create a Valentine's themed pamphlet to hand out to the staff alerting them of the fun snacks. 

I also created a small pamphlet for all the staff reminding them of the high school drama club performance and to remember to vote so the author Jan Brett could visit the Primary School. 

On one of the other days, she had me create some bullying posters that could be hung up around the high school. 

Last Thursday, February 26th, Mrs. Latorre was out of the office so I headed to the primary school to work with Mrs. Brookhart. She gave me a tour of the school which holds grades K-2. The school was huge! Mrs. Brookhart really wants literature circles to be used more by the teachers. She trusted me to write a small newsletter for the teachers to help them understand what they are and create positions for the kids as well as bookmarks containing the information they need to know for their jobs in the circle. 

Today March 3rd, I proofread a volunteer handbook, created a cover for a binder they have around the office, created a paper to hand out to school board members, and researched the career development centers of some of the colleges around the area. I did the research because Mrs. Latorre is looking for substitute teachers and wants to be able to post the job offerings on college sites for freshly graduated seniors who want to work for Danville School Districts

All in all, this internship has been amazing so far. I am excited to keep expanding my portfolio and help make the Danville School District the best it can be!


Second Post, March 19, 2015:

Since the last time I posted on my blog, I have not been to my internship. March 5th I did not attend because of the weather. The next week was spring break. This week I have not attended because the Superintendent has been out with a family emergency. I hope everything is okay with her family and I can continue to work next week.

Third Post, March 26, 2015: 

On Tuesday March 24th, I had a busy day at my internship. Mrs. Latorre had me create a bunch of things for her. The first thing I did was proofread the wellness newsletter one last time so she can send it out to the staff. There was not much to fix, but there were a couple errors. It did not take too long but I am relieved it is hopefully finally done! 

A teacher from the school district is retiring and Mrs. Latorre wrote up an invitation that she wants to give to this teacher to invite him to come to his ceremony to celebrate his dedication to the school district. She asked me to make an invitation for him and to include pictures of the four sports he was involved in during his time at the school. 

Mrs. Latorre asked me to create a small Easter thank you that she can send out to the staff to wish them a happy Easter and thank them for all their hard work. I created a colorful, little half page that she can give her staff.

The next thing on the list was to create a silly paper that said "If you lost your marbles, please take one!". She hopes to put this next to a bag of marbles to produce some comic relief around the always busy and stressful office. I found a cute clip art picture online of a man who seems to have marbles coming out of his head.

Mrs. Latorre then asked me to write congratulations letter to three students who placed top honors in the Pennsylvania High School Speech League championship tournament. The letters were to be from her and she would include a picture of the three of them with the letter. She also had me create a generic "Congratulations" letter that she can send out to students as well. 

The last thing she had me do was organize her personal binder that contains a bunch of different things. She had me create sections that included all the things inside of it. She has a lot of achievement awards, student achievements, and personal thank you/congratulation notes from students and other people. I was more than happy to help make her day a little less hectic and organize her things.

On Thursday, March 26th, Mrs. Latorre introduced me to a new project she has for me. I am going to help her combine all of the staff handbooks (substitute, employee, volunteer, etc.) into one bit handbook that they can give out to employees. As of now, they have a separate one for each but her plan is create one that has tabs to each different position. I created a cover for the new handbooks. I also looked them all over to see what I can incorporate in the part of the handbook that is the same for every job. Next Thursday, I will be working with Mrs. Brookhart in the primary school to get officially started.

I also looked up poems on the internet to make into a cute card to give to the secretaries around the school district. Secretary day is coming up and Mrs. Latorre is giving each one a little something and including the card.

Lastly, I made two signs for an event coming up telling people who are attending where to park and that there are no food or drink allowed in the gymnasium.

All in all, I had a long, eventful week at my internship. I continue to learn and grow while there as well as enjoying the company of all the ladies I work with!  

Fourth Post, March 31, 2015: 

In the Danville School District (just like in most schools) they have handbooks explaining the regulations of each position here. When you get hired, they give you the handbook to read over to make sure you are up to date with all their rules and such. Mrs. Latorre and Mrs. Brookhart have decided that they want to combine all four of the handbooks together to make it easier for the employee as well as the employer. They have appointed me to have the task of arranging the books into one. The four handbooks are substitute, volunteer, paraprofessional, and employee. The first part of the handbook will be a generalized section that can be used by everyone who gets hired here. The next sections will be tabbed for each specific type of employee. Both days, March 31 and April 2, I worked the entire time on combining these handbooks. It is a large task that may take a while to complete.

Final Post, May 5, 2015

Last week I my finished my semester at the Danville School District. I dedicated 120 hours of my time to this internship. This internship was a great experience for me. I could not be more thankful for my time here. I learned so much about my profession as well as a working community. Cheryl Latorre and Dawn Brookhart were so helpful with the learning process and were constantly there to help. I appreciate their help more than they will ever know! I was lucky enough to have two internships during my time at Bloomsburg and they were nothing but a positive experience for me. This was a great way to end a great fours years at the best college, Bloomsburg University!

Agape Internship - Spring Internship

On Friday, January 23 2015 I had my first day working with Agape as their Public Relations/ Marketing Intern. Agape is a non-profit organization serving the people of their community. As of 2009, Agape has been serving families throughout the Columbia and Montour counties. During the 2011 Tropical Storm Lee flood Agape helped families throughout six counties. Agape makes sure to help those people in the communities who are "falling through the gaps," and need help putting food on their table, finding homes, jobs and household appliances. I have known I would be working with them since Fall semester 2014, so it's exciting to currently be involved.

Agape is located downtown on 19 East 7th Street Bloomsburg, PA 17815 and are open weekdays except Wednesdays. I work with them mainly Fridays and occasionally Mondays , but since a lot of the work I am given is done on the computer, I can work on it outside of the office.

So far as their Public Relations/ Marketing intern, I have designed an updated informational brochure that has been printed, approved by the board, and on display for people to view. The brochure was my first project and I have many more to work on before my internship ends in May. I am currently working on pamphlets that are based off the first brochure but go into further detail about each of Agape's programs; Life's Challenges, Joseph's Storehouse, Helping Hands, and Making Progress.

Working with Agape so far has opened my eyes to how many people in the community need help with their daily lives; and being able to help market Agape and all they do for people makes for a more influential internship experience.

(Below is the first brochure I completed)



Exclusively You - Spring Internship

FIRST POST 
On January 29, 2015 I started my Spring internship at Exclusively You as a Fashion PR and Event Planning Intern. I work under the owner of the bridal and formalwear store, Kimberly Keck. This week completes my 5th week at Exclusively You. 

Thus far, I have dedicated 48 hours to this internship. Exclusively you is located at 53 West Main Street right here in Bloomsburg, PA. 

During my time at Exclusively You, one of my jobs has been to focus on social media and help build a bigger and better fan base/followers for Exclusively You. The two main social media platforms I have been working with are Facebook and Pinterest. 

PINTEREST

Exclusively You has their own account on Pinterest, within their account they have eight "boards". Each of these boards have a unique topic however, all of them are related to planning a wedding. We know that a majority of our followers on this account are "brides to be" or people who are looking for ideas to plan their own, or someone else's, big day. 

Exclusively You wants to help as much as possible. 

These boards are titled the following... 

1. Cakes, Sweets and Treats
2. Make-up Looks
3. Prom Sneak Peak!
4. Bride To Be
5. Finishing Touches
6. Be Inspired by Color
7. Capture the Bid Day
8. Venues to Die For

                                   

Every day when I come into the store I hop on the computer and check our account. In the "Prom Sneak Peak" board, "Finishing Touches" board, and the "Bride To Be" board is where I spend the most of my time. I will go through our in-store inventory book and figure out which prom and wedding dresses have been big hits this season. I will search for pictures of these dresses on pictures and pin them to my board, making viewers aware that this beautiful dress is something we have in store and ready to try on. I do the same for "Finishing Touches" only this time with veils, shoes, gown belts, clutches, jewelry and other accessories we sell in store. When I first started at Exclusively You our account had 189 followers and 142 pins. 

Today, we have 200 followers and 213 pins. 

By the end of my time here at Exclusively You I hope to gain at least 50 more followers for their account and get 300 pins to our boards. This is a goal I am setting myself for this social media platform. 

FACEBOOK

Exclusively You has a lot of activity and customer interaction on their Facebook profile. We update Facebook more then any other social media platform. Each day when I log into our Facebook account we have multiple notifications from happy customers who post pictures of themselves in a dress that they bought at Exclusively You, thanking us for making their special day. It is really rewarding to see these posts, and we of course respond thanking them for their business and telling them they looked absolutely stunning! 

We love to post pictures of new arrivals on Facebook. We know that people go to our page looking for information and updates from the store, we want to show off our store/inventory as much as we can. 

These are some of the Facebook posts I conducted during my time here at Exclusively You.

The first two posts are about beautiful new gowns that just arrived in store. While creating a caption for these posts I knew that I wanted to mention the brand of the gown since a lot of brides have their favorite brands (these two are very popular wedding dress brands). I wanted my captions to be eye catching and brief. It is nice to see likes and comments on posts that I create. And yes, we did some women come in the store and check out these specific dresses after seeing this Facebook post! 

The next two posts feature pictures that I took myself, and captions that I created myself. They are pictures of the inside of Exclusively You. The goal of posting these photos was to show our wide variety and in-store organization.

I have learned that social media platforms are a great way to interact with our target audience. A lot of people jump  on the internet and look for information about the store before coming in. Because of this we want to show them exactly what we have and portray that we are ready to meet their needs! After all, its not just any dress... its THE dress. This is the slogan Exclusively You uses. 

OUR BIG EVENT OF THE MONTH!!!

The Press Enterprise Annual Bridal Show took place on Sunday Feb. 22, 2015 at the Caldwell Consistory in downtown Bloomsburg. Brides and their guests enjoyed food and cake samples, tons of vendor displays, fashion shows of the latest in bridal wear, special show day discounts and so much more! Exclusively You had a table display and was one of two bridal/formalwear stores to be featured in this years bridal fashion show. 

We spent a lot of time planning for this bridal fashion show. We wanted to display our very best to the audience. We featured 5 different types of wedding gowns, multiple bridesmaids dresses, flower girl dresses, as well as mother and father of the bride outfits. We selected looks that we felt would popular for this upcoming wedding season. Our segment of the show lasted about a half hour. 

I created a short video to show some of the looks we displayed. 

I am very fortunate to have this internship and I feel that I am learning a lot from the owner Kim and her fabulous staff. I cannot wait to see what the next few weeks bring. 

SECOND POST

Coming back from spring break I felt like I missed a lot at internship! We got so many new dress deliveries and changed around the display of the store. But I was able to catch up on work and get back in the swing of things quickly. 

Now that high school prom dates are approaching rapidly, both the designers and the stores are trying to push the attire as much as possible. Some popular designer brands contacted Exclusively You a few weeks ago and asked us if we would be wiling to hang posters promoting their brand in our store. Here are some that we just got in the store and decided to display. If the brand does well, that means the store does well, so it is a win win situation in our eyes!

Allure Men and Michael Kors are both popular brands when it comes to mens suites. A lot of both prom guys and grooms/groomsmen come in asking about these suits/tux's and again, they are some of our best sellers. They paired up to create this poster. 

Jovani is a very popular prom dress brand that many people come into the store asking about. We carry many of their dresses and they are some of the most frequently bought prom dresses in the store. 

We thought it would be best to display these photos at the entrance of our store for two reasons; first, we thought that people passing by the store who were just "window shopping" would see them and know that we carry those brands, this could attract them to our store and bring in traffic. Second, we wanted people who come into our store to be aware that these brands are here! They are best sellers and we hold plenty of these items that we want to get off of the shelves. Sometimes seeing a picture of someone else in the dress/suit helps you get a better idea of if you, as a buyer, would like to check it out.  

Exclusively You got another special delivery in the mail this week from another popular brand Faviana. Faviana is a favorite for prom girls, their dresses are beautiful. As a little thank you for purchasing  Faviana dresses to display in our stores the designers sent Exclusively You a box full of t-shirts. 

We were trying to decide of what to do with these t-shirts. The Exclusively You staff put their heads together and decided that we were going to give a t-shirt to every girl who purchased a Faviana dress from our store. The staff each got a t-shirt as well. The girls were excited after picking out their beautiful prom dress and getting a free t-shirt. 

The rest of my week at Exclusively You was spend updating social media platforms. Exclusively You is currently running a great special for prom guys. If you rent a tuxedo from us you get your shoes for free! We started running this special on March 15th and it lasts until March 31st. We wanted to make sure everyone knew about this special so we needed to share it on our social media platforms. This flyer was created and shared. 

Every day is different at Exclusively You, you never know what you're going to get! That's what I love the most about it. We love our clients and want to make their experience the best one possible. It is so fun working with these amazing brands and amazing people. Can't wait to see what's next! 

THIRD POST

This week was a little bit slow at Exclusively You. We during my hours there on Tuesday and Thursday we spent some time reorganizing the store and making sure all of the dresses were in good, "try on" condition. Over the past few weeks we realized that some of the customers have a hard time understanding how our dresses are categorized, we felt that color coordinating the dresses would be the best way to avoid confusion, so that is what we did! 

Now that "prom dress shopping" season is coming to a close, we have already received all of our orders from dress companies, therefore all the prom dresses we have currently in the store, are the only dresses we will have from here on out. The goal of Exclusively You is to now make sales directly from the floor so we can get rid of our inventory. We discussed this week that sometimes the buyers will be difficult with this since they want a new dress that no one has tried on before. Also they want one that will be perfectly fitted for them so they do not have to pay for additional alterations. Because of this, Exclusively You has decided to give a 10% discount to anyone who buys a dress directly off the floor. 

On Friday March 27th Exclusively You was getting paid a visit from a employee of Allure Bridal. Allure Bridal is a company that we work with daily, we have a ton of their wedding dresses in our store and it is a very popular, and often asked for, brand. We thought that since one of Allure Bridals reps were going to be visiting our store that we should change our window display and replace our current display dresses with the Allure Brand. We put a beautiful Allure Bridal gown on our window display manikin, along with Allure Men's tux. We topped this window display off with a bridesmaids dress and mother of the bride dress that matched in color, along with some colorful flowers placed on a pretty mirrored table. We feel that the window display came out beautiful and we know that the Allure Bridal representative will be happy to see us displaying their products!

FINAL THOUGHTS 

I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend the past 4 months with Exclusively You and their amazing owner, Kimberly Keck. It has taught me so much not only about my profession, but about owning a business and work responsibilities in general. I think that every student should have an experience such as this one before they graduate college. 

It was so rewarding having happy customers post pictures of themselves on Exclusively You's social media pages showing off the beautiful gowns/dresses that they purchased at our store. 

I dedicated 120 hours this semester to Exclusively You. The entire staff welcomed me with open arms and were both patient and kind during this learning experience of mine. Thank you Exclusively You, I will make sure to come by and visit in the future! 

Welcome to the Spring 2015 Internship Blog

Welcome to the Spring 2015 Internship Blog. Now since you have had the opportunity to start your internship and collect accomplishments, I want to begin a shared dialogue about your experiences.

Each week you will be responsible for generating a post that indicates your happenings for the week and things that you have learned from your internship experience. After you create your post, you will be responsible for responding to at least one other person's post.

For your reference, there are three of you completing this assignment and I will be weighing in on the conversation as we complete our weekly writings. The entries are due by 5 p.m. each Friday. So, your first entry will be due on March 6. Happy writing!

PS. Upload pictures, links ... anything that can help you tell your internship story.

Dr. Byrum