A Summer of Interns
Kaitlyn Peine
Community Health and Wellness
Extension Agent
It’s not unusual to have an intern or two on our team at K-State Research and Extension Douglas County. We are in close proximity to three universities, and we do great work in our community. These factors allow us to be great host for interns. Last summer our team hosted The Summer Engagement Program that is funded by the Kansas State Department of Education and hosted through the State 4-H Office. When the opportunity to reapply for the grant, it was an easy yes for our team. For the summer of 2023, The Summer Engagement Program provided $50,000 in grant funding for Douglas County including five paid intern positions and a budget for program materials.
The Summer Engagement Program provides direct education to youth populations throughout the summer months. The program is indented to provide supplemental learning experiences to make up for learning loss due to the disruption of in person learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Douglas County we are fortunate to have two agents providing support for The Summer Engagement Program, Nicking Harding our 4-H Youth Development Agent and myself. Serving a larger county and our agent support positioned our team to host five summer interns. Nickie provided support for our science programming efforts, and I supported the healthy living programs.
In the winter months the intern positions were announced, and we conducted interviews in collaboration with the state program coordinator. Our team of five interns included four Douglas County 4-H alumni and an intern who returned from last summer. The Summer Engagement Program provides paid internship experiences, a benefit we are not always able to offer our office interns. We had a great intern team and they each did an outstanding job during their internship.
While interns are common on our team, it’s not every day we have the opportunity host five interns. Having a team of interns focused on youth outreach efforts expanded our staffing capacity and increased our youth reach. Our interns taught 97 summer educational programming activities and reached an impressive 2,977 youth. Many programs were hosted in collaboration with youth serving community partners. We taught programs for the Eudora School District, Greenbush, Lawrence Parks and Recreation, Lawrence Library and Holcom Summer Food sites, Feeding Eudora, and Baldwin Parks and Recreation. The interns also hosted several day camp opportunities including Field to Fork, Explorers Camp, Clover Camp, and a youth and adult food preservation workshop.
In addition to our Summer Engagement intern team, we also had Emily Brinkman on our team, interning for LiveWell Douglas County. Emily did a phenomenal job with the youth programs at the Lawrence Farmers Market this summer on behalf of a LiveWell project.
We are waiting to hear about the details for The Summer Engagement Program for next summer. Once the details are available, we will share the intern position announcement and programming opportunities through our office newsletter.
