Interning to Learn More than Coffee…
By David Langdon
Bulldogs in the Bluegrass Intern for Metro United Way
The job title “Intern” doesn’t usually bring to mind the most revered of all positions. For those of you reading now, if you smell coffee, it could be that an intern just placed a cup on your desk, or maybe your carpet still reeks of cappuccino from the last time your intern spilled it on the floor. Just don’t forget to yell at him for forgetting the cream and sugar, or else he’ll never learn!
For some interns, however, this rite of passage goes more smoothly and productively than for others. In fact, as an intern this summer for Metro United Way’s Community Impact Department, I can playfully mock my less-fortunate brethren while knowing that I did a lot more this summer than familiarize myself with the world of coffee makers and copying machines. I was lucky enough to be placed right into the grit of Metro United Way’s extensive work on early childhood education, a role that enabled me to participate in the inspiring effort to meet this region’s ambitious educational goals. And while my entire summer was not spent on early childhood education, I was exposed to enough of it to get a sense of how much Metro United Way does for Kentuckiana and how much is still left to be done.
I began my early childhood research by working with the Ages a& Stages Questionnaires (ASQ), a component of Success By 6 that allows parents to track the developmental progress of their children. Once I was well-versed in that, I took my show on the road and shared the good news of ASQs with several million parents (or maybe just a few hundred) at the Kindergarten Countdown event at Slugger Field. Back in the office, I later found myself working over data figures that told the story of how Metro United Way’s educational initiatives are funded, all the while helping to do what I could with the Border’s Book Drives and college scholarship interviews. Though these efforts cover a wide array of educational projects, they only scratch the surface of the enormous educational machine at work in Metro United Way.
The final early childhood education project I worked on reminded me that despite all of the great work that is being put into the community’s children, we cannot afford to get complacent. The educational figures I studied from JCPS schools, though they are improving in many categories, are staggering nonetheless. Dropout rates, reading levels, and sub-par testing performance remind us how pressing the educational agenda is for the health of the community’s future. For those of us who want to fight to improve the opportunities and the lives of local youth, I suggest that we work together, join hands, and, if I dare say it, live united as we strive toward the common goal of educational progress.
As my time at Metro United Way is coming to a close, I want to point out how fortunate the local community is to have so many people who deeply care about the health of their community and their neighbors. All of the early childhood projects I worked on and the people with whom I worked reflected this. I owe a tremendous thank you to Metro United Way—not just for giving me an internship that demanded more than cappuccino skills—but for letting me work side-by-side with the very people who are going to bring this great community to the cutting edge of education.
If you would like to get involved with education in greater Louisville, please visit our volunteer website!
McKaye, Kayla and David - our wonderful Bulldogs in the Bluegrass!
*Note* – David, along with two other Yale students, connected with Metro United Way through the Bulldogs Across America Internship Program. Click here to learn how your organization or company can get involved!