The Boy Scouts has always been an organization that I have known of, but I really did not know much about. When the opportunity opened up to be able to work as an intern for the Greater Niagara Frontier Council, Boy Scouts of America, I really didn’t know what I was getting into. What I now know about the Boy Scouts is that there is a great group of people working hard at the Greater Niagara Frontier Council, putting on events and going out of their way to make sure that boys, and now girls, can take part in the great activities and lessons that the Boy Scouts offers. I am honored that I was able to work with such a great place. Prior to this, I had not even thought about the Boy Scouts having an of an office where people work on a number of things like marketing and more. As a marketing and developmental intern, I was able to learn an array of things.
This internship allowed me to learn more about marketing, specifically some of what it takes to put on large events to help raise funds for this non-profit organization. There is a lot of work that goes behind making those events happen, and being organized is key to making it happen. While keeping paper to track tickets, ads, and other things is great, it also helps to create matching Excel sheets. Prior to this internship, I did not have a clue how to use Excel. I am glad this internship was able to show me how important Excel is in the work setting. Learning how to work in an office and how to do things, like work with Excel or doing mail merges or even working the printer, is something that is expected for you to know how to do, so it’s great having the opportunity to learn how to do these things while in an internship. There is no better place to learn than in an internship with people who want to teach you.
This internship was very rewarding. Not only was I able to put what I’ve been learning the past four years into use, I was able to see the things I had been working on come to life. I was able to write a press release and was excited to find out it actually got coverage. For their gala, Fire & Ice, I kept track of and organized tickets, program ads, donations and auction items. I helped put the auction items together and gave them all fun names for their description sheets. I even was able to make a sponsor sign. It was so rewarding to work the event and see everything I had been working on come together. Once we started working on things for the next event, I already felt like I had a pretty good idea of what was going on and what to do. Not only was the work rewarding, my advisers were always so encouraging throughout everything. After a long day of working on things, they always praised me and made it a very enjoyable experience. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to intern with the Boy Scouts. I learned more about a great organization, learn more about the behind the scenes work that goes into a non-profit and gained mentors who taught me so much in just one semester. My advisers sent me off with a thank you gift; a beautiful glass paper weight with the symbol for the Boy Scouts on it. In the glass it says “Prepared for Life” and, though I still have much more to learn, what I have learned with the Boy Scouts has definitely made me feel more prepared.
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