Wrapping up at Child & Family Services

Next week is the Adopt-a-Family Christmas gift drop off for the holidays at Child & Family Services, and I honestly can’t wait to see what’s in store. The past month and a half I’ve been working on getting this event ready and doing odds and ends to make sure it goes smoothly and I can’t wait to see it all come together next week. There will be hundreds of volunteers, workers, and donors who will be coming in to fill up the place with presents ready to be dropped off to families throughout Buffalo who can’t afford the financial pressures that the holidays bring. Everyone who has worked this event before is in love with it and only talks great things about how great it is to see so many people giving back to their community and how amazing it is that so many families get to experience a real Christmas. My time at Child & Family Services really has been a great experience and I’m so lucky to have had it be my first internship work experience in the communications field. I feel like I’m coming out with so many skills that I can transfer to other jobs/places and build off of. Looking back at my goals from the beginning of the semester, I really do feel like it was successful. I assisted in planning and writing several internal and external publications throughout my time there, such as newsletters, press releases, volunteer interview articles and more. I also got to work on some marketing and promotion for one of their events, and then got to attend the event, Fashion Show with a Twist, and see it come together. I’ll be ending my semester there on a high note by attending and volunteering at their biggest event, Adopt a Family. I think this is probably the best case scenario of how to end my already great internship experience there. I really liked all the ladies that I got to work with, and was able to get different pieces of advice from all of them. I think I’m walking away as a much stronger writing for media and public relations purposes, but also with the knowledge of how a nonprofit works and how many different pieces go into different events that nonprofit agency’s have and all the important things that come from. This knowledge and experience will be a great backbone as I venture off to new work environments. Tangible communications experience is something really important to have and I’m lucky to have gotten the chance to not only do it this semester, but also get so much out of it and develop a love for the place I interned. Overall, I would rate the experience a 9/10 and would definitely recommend people to intern there, especially if you have an interest in working for a nonprofit!