University of Illinois Extension Champaign County - Creating Horse SPIN Clubs

     My main project of my internship experience was to create horse SPIN Clubs around Champaign county. To understand this project you must first understand what a SPIN Club is and how it differs from a 4-H Community Club. A SPIN Club is a special interest club where five or more young people learn about a topic of interest. Topics vary and include interests such as nature, heritage arts, science, photography, gardening, shooting sports, and more. SPIN Clubs are led by volunteers who have a passion and want to share their knowledge with young people. SPIN Clubs only need to meet for a minimum of 6 times, with the hopes of keeping the club running long therm. With that in mind, my project was to create SPIN Clubs around Champaign county that would focus on learning about horses. 4-H Community Clubs are what you would term your basic 4-H Clubs. These clubs are led by one or more volunteers, and they focus on more than one project area. Kids in these clubs choose their own project that they work individually on with the end goal of exhibiting that project at their county fair. In these clubs children may learn about one topic one meeting and then something completely different the next meeting, this is where 4-H Community Clubs differ from the SPIN Clubs, since they learn about one topic each meeting but grow in expertise as they continue.

Westbrook Stables - Mahomet

     When I first started back in May my initial assignments was to recruit volunteers from the community that would be interested in leading these clubs. I first started by looking up local horse barns and contacting them by email. In total I reached out to 10 different horse barns, farms, and operations. I had about 4 respond to me with 2 clubs actually getting formed. After I had email correspondence from these potential volunteers, I then had to schedule a meeting time with them where I could explain the roles of being a SPIN Club leader and how to get started. My first meeting was in Mahomet at Westbrook Stables, which occured on only my 4th day of my internship! I had the assistance of my SPIN Coordinator, Melissa Bender, whereas she attended this meeting with me and helped me explain the parts that I was still unsure of when pitching to our potential volunteer. This meeting went very well as they will be one of our formed SPIN Clubs. Our next successful SPIN Club came out of Pesotum at Healing Horses Stables, a therapeutic riding barn. This meeting was the second one I completed on my own, where I went to the location and provided our SPIN Club pitch alone. Along with finding SPIN Club leaders, I also have to recruit the youth who will be participating in these clubs. This included creating a flier, sending a newsletter, and even advertising on Facebook. I was then responsible for organizing a way to answer all questions and concerns as well as keep track of who is interested in what club so that I can contact them once the club is ready to begin.
     After I explained to potential leaders what a SPIN Club is I then give them a volunteer screening packet that they must complete in order to be a volunteer with Extension. Before we can move further along the process of forming a club this form must come back to the office and be approved through the various checks that are required. This is where we got held up in forming our clubs. The screening process is hard to judge how long it will take as some checks are out of our control. We finally had most of our volunteers screened by the end of July, so we were allowed to start continuing on with getting our Horse SPIN Club formed.

Horse SPIN Club Leader Training - Pesotum Leaders

     After a volunteer leader is approved they then must go through leader training given by Melissa and myself. We held a meeting for both our Mahomet and Pesotum leaders together so that they could meet each other, share ideas, and get trained at once. We spent and hour and a half going through the 4-H basics, 4-H policies, defining what a SPIN Club is, planning procedures for SPIN Clubs, risk management, and other related topics. The meeting was successful when we finally got start dates and times set up for the clubs. Because of how the 4-H year works our clubs actually will not be able to begin until September. With our leaders being trained and ready to go I could then move onto the next step of contacting our youth. From now until our club starts I will be working on getting responses from the youth to see if they are still interested in joining the Horse SPIN Clubs as well as mailing them the necessary forms for them to enroll.
     From this 3 month long experience I learned that things do not go as planned. We initially thought that our Mahomet club would have been started before July. However, with the screening process this was out of our control. This dilemma did allow for me to focus on other projects at the time, but it would've been nice to have our youth participate in a summer club. Another small victory for us is that both of our Horse SPIN Clubs plan to extend their clubs past the 6 meeting time minimum and want to be long term clubs. It will be a great experience for me to see both of these clubs grow and continue as I will be interning with Extension throughout the school year.

A Learning Experience That I'll Never Forget

This summer has gone by so quickly and it's hard to believe that I'm almost done working as an intern for Mixagogo Inc. Not only has Mixagogo been an experience, but California is just paradise to me. I am staying in Southern California in Redondo Beach, where I am a 10 minute walk from the ocean. The weather is amazing every day, but I could use a little rain once in a while. Overall, I love the atmosphere and that is a very big contributing factor to why I am having a great experience.

At the start of the summer, I wasn't really too busy. I was doing a lot of work behind the scenes for Mixagogo such as, finding events/inputting them into the web-based interface, creating marketing pieces(examples below), began the mobile application design, and researched different social media approaches to increase the popularity of the Mixagogo name. These were the tasks that I was doing starting in May and they have continued on through the present day. Along with working on these aspects of the company, I was introduced to networking events, up-front and in person. This was where the real work started. My boss, Joanne Galin, is a "networking guru" to most people and she is very personable. In order to increase the popularity of Mixagogo, I accompanied her at networking events. The first event I went to was the Manhattan Beach Wine Auction on June 17th, 2014. This event was definitely the largest and most interesting, given that I'm a big wine fanatic and all. This is an annual event with the intention of gathering wine/food lovers and party goers to participate in a wine auction in which donations go to charity. All of the proceeds go to the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation. At the wine auction, I was able to meet so many new and different people. Everybody seemed to be very well-off, but very modest and generous. The auction went until 11 PM and as the night went on, the more exciting the auction became. Our table was set with at least 4 bottles of fine wine, bread, and a wide variety of cheeses. I felt as if I was living the high life already. I was well equipped with Mixagogo cards and handing them out to anybody and everybody that I met. I met people from companies that come from backgrounds with graphic design, wine making, fine art sales, mall leasing agents, financial advisory, the TV network industry and many more. There was such a wide range of companies that had been made available to tickets for this sold out event. It was something that I have never seen before. Overall, this event was great and I hope to be living in LA in order to attend next year.

Although the Wine Auction was the best event, I also attended many more that caught my interest. The next event that was most interesting to me was a city council rooftop mixer.This mixer was on top of the Bank of Manhattan at the beginning of July. It was right on the water and it was the perfect time for the sunset. At this event, I met a couple of people that really caught my attention. There was a man named Al Wise. He is the Director of marketing and public relations at Manhattan Beach Toyota. He is a retired priest and also offers counseling services for a smaller fee than any counselor in the area, given that he does his sessions in his house. I had an hour-long talk with him about his strategies in marketing. I gained a lot of insight on how to market the Mixagogo brand name. Another person of interest was Jeanne Peters. She owns her own wellness center and actually offered me a job for when I'm finished with my internship. I found that a lot of people knew about the Mixagogo name. I was very surprised when someone said to me, "you're into netowrking? Have you heard of Mixagogo?" I started to laugh because that was exactly what I was representing at the event. The main conversation starting points came from me deciding whether or not to move to Los Angeles and, of course, everybody is bias, but I don't really see any reason to not relocate. Overall, I am having a terrific time exploring the different opportunities that have come my way while working for the Mixagogo Inc. and I hope to be able to see plenty of more things as my internship continues.

Community Outreach Internship

I was really fortunate this summer to land an internship with an instructor at the University doing community outreach in the animal science field. This fall Sarah Albert will be teaching a course specifically on the various aspects of community outreach and students will actually get to create their own event to complete this fall. For this class to work Sarah asked that I help her create the syllabus and also help line up a few interested partners to work with our students in the fall.

The course will consist of in-class lectures on finding partners and sponsors, the various components of creating events, and the different types of needs communities might need. The class will be broken up into groups that will then work together to decide what type event they would like to host and find all the necessary contacts to make the event happen. Sarah, another intern and I will be there to direct them advise them and make sure they are on the right track.

Along with helping design this class with Sarah. I have been asked to create some informational material for the community. We decided to create three separate pamphlets, one on pet friendly housing in Champaign-Urbana, another one on the benefits of becoming a pet friendly housing community and the last one is material on how to be a good tenant with pets. The hope is to educate landlords on pet friendly housing and to encourage them to, not only become pet friendly, but to base their acceptance of animals on personality and not breed or weight. Many places believe that there are certain types of breeds that are more dangerous than others or that these same breeds attract the wrong kind of people. We want to break those stereotypes and inform landlords of the myths and facts about BSL. The pet friendly housing list will be offered at many locations to advertise these establishments and act as an incentive to landlords who want their names on this list. We are also providing material for landlords to hand out to new tenants as friendly reminders on being respectful of the property and other tenants.

Once all of these things are ready we plan on meeting with the tenant union and major housing companies in the area to talk to them individually on these subjects. By meeting with them we are hoping to answer any questions and clear up any pre-conceived ideas they may have.

While doing all of these community outreach projects I have also gotten the chance to help out a few of the organizations I've met with different projects and events. I was fortunate enough to accompany Sarah a few weeks back to Vermillion County Animal Control. Sarah does some volunteer work with the organization Peace for Pits which is a rescue group for pit bulls and pit bull type dogs. Vermillion County is a high kill shelter so we went there to evaluate a few dogs for potential foster. It was a lot harder than I thought because there were so many great dogs and only a few foster homes available. Not only are you behavior testing these dogs for safety but also to see if they are a good match for the foster homes available. In the end we wound up with two rambunctious pitty puppies from a hoarding situation that are now settling into their foster home well.

Another great organization I was able to help out was Country Cats. This organization works to take cats in shelters that are not suitable for living indoors, feral or not, and place them with people who are looking for outdoor cats on their property. I spent the afternoon at Antique Farm Days talking to people about the organization and trying to sign up potential caretakers for these cats. I loved getting to talk to all the people at the fair and educate them about this great organization.

So far this internship has been a lot of fun. I'm learning a lot an developing a new appreciation for the community outreach side of the animal science industry. I hope to have more opportunities to work with the community and I look forward to what the rest of the summer brings.

Where has the summer gone?

Wow! I feel like it was just yesterday I was at Beck's Hybrid Headquarters in Atlanta, Indiana for intern on-boarding. On-boarding has been one of the coolest experiences of my summer internship thus far. I learned so much about the history of the company and why the company is so important to the Beck family. It amazed me how big a small family business can grow with hard work and determination.

After two days of intern on-boarding, it was on to start my internship in Downs, Illinois at the Beck's Central Illinois Practical Farm Research facility. We got to work right away, as we had to finishing up planting corn and soybean plots on the farm. It was a little overwhelming trying to figure out the locations and research being done at the various plots on the farm, but by now I can tell you where all the plots are located and what the goal of the plot is.

After we finished planting, the crops took off and started growing very quickly with the humid, hot, and wet weather had in early June. So, we then started are PFR partner program, with this program we traveled with different nitrogen application rigs all over the state to apply nitrogen to v10 growth stage corn. With this program we experiment with different nitrogen application rates, as well as experimenting with urea. I got to drive the rigs a lot on the road and really enjoyed that. I also got to applicate the nitrogen a few times, which was a really cool experience.

After we completed all the fields we had for the PFR partners program in late June, we returned back to Downs full time to start preparing for our field day, which is August, 14th. We have been doing a lot of spraying and grooming of the plots on the farm to insure they are in tip-top shape for field day. We have also been putting up a lot of signs up to identify the hybrids and research being done in the plots.

Recently, I have decided on a plot that I will use for my special project for our class. I have decided to use a corn and soybean wheel population plot that I have been working with all summer. Myself and two other interns that work with, hand planted the two wheels in early June and have managed it throughout the summer. It is a very cool to look at and see how different hybrids react to various population rates.

I have already learned so much this summer, it is unreal. I believe, I have learned more about corn and soybeans in 2 months than in my whole entire life. This week is should be a lot of fun because on Friday, we are flying to Texas on Beck's Leer Jet to observe Texas corn harvest. I'm very excited to be making my first visit to the great state of Texas on a private jet!

A Summer Outside of My Comfort Zone

My internship experience this summer has been interesting to say the least. Like many of my fellow AgEd interns I was lucky enough to land an internship with University Extension, specifically Unit 22 which covers Madison, Monroe, and St. Clair counties in Southwestern Illinois. See, I'm the type of person that doesn't like to stay in one place too long, so I'm always looking for new ways to go places and even push myself outside of my comfort zone. Looking back on what I have gone through this summer, I sometimes wonder if this was too much outside of my comfort zone though. I've found myself getting into a routine of work, gym, sleep, repeat; and it's starting to take a toll on me. Being three hours away from both home and campus has made it almost exhausting to travel to see my close friends and family.

It's no mystery that it's gotten somewhat lonely down here in Waterloo. Don't get me wrong, the family I live with is wonderful, and I've had nothing but great experiences, but it gets challenging to keep pushing through an internship when I know hardly anyone in town, and I've had a lot of personal time to evaluate everything.

Moving along, the experiences that I've had down here with Unit 22 Extension have been nothing short of eye-opening and educational for me. I've done everything in the office from the typical intern tasks of making copies, to leading a small group of 4-H parents and youth to build an entire parade float. I've helped organize parts of the office that haven't had that much attention put on them in probably five years, I've helped do programming out on the Air Force Base which is interesting in itself because they have unrealistic standards to which you can discipline the youth (you can't even tell the child that they need to pay better attention without having to worry about getting yourself in trouble). I've spent a lot of time diving into a new found interest of what could hardly be called graphic design, and I've even been lucky enough to sit in on a Latino Family Commission Meeting to learn how to better go about reaching those in the Latino communities in the area.

The office I work out of has some truly amazing people with whom I'm happy and extremely honored to be able to spend so much time with. If I ever have a question, someone always has an answer. They are an outstandingly motivated team that only wishes the best for their county and the entire unit. They've been a huge support system for me this summer. When I sat down with Pam (County Director), Ashley (4-H youth educator), and Nora (Community and Economic Educator), before I started, I was able to get a feel for what they needed as an independent project. Nora explained that the local businesses have recently noticed that those starting to get into the "working age" are lacking customer service skills that the past generations have succeeded in. I finally saw my opening.

Once I started my internship I started working on an outline for my independent project. I chose something that has always truly interested me, and that is extremely important in today's world. I devised a workshop called, "It's Who You Know, Not What You Know," which covered networking with subtle touches on effective communication, customer service, and email etiquette. I was so excited to finally be able to educate youth in an area that isn't taught much anymore in the typical school setting. These subjects are important to know whether you're going to college or out into the real world right after high school, and the earlier you learn them the better. I had to learn the hard way about these subjects when I got to college, so I was thrilled to be able to help the youth of Unit 22 become more educated in these areas.

Initially I was supposed to do three of my proposed workshops, one in each county. But, time started dwindling and I was never able to meet with the correct person in St. Clair county, so I had to scrap the workshop. This was supposed to be my way of trying to help with our Latino initiative. I had translated everything from the sign-up sheet to the flyer just so that I could help parents in the community better understand what their kids were signing up for. I took this with a grain of salt, and I kept pushing on with my other two workshops.

Time ran down and I had done everything I could to promote my workshops. I had information sent out to all of the 4-H leaders, I had it posted on the video board at the local library, and I had flyers up around the town, but only a few youth signed up. That was that. I had to scrap my first attempt at an independent project. I felt somewhat lost. This was supposed to be a great opportunity for these kids. Why wouldn't they take it? Ashley reminded me though that summer programming is one of the last things teenagers want to do these days, so I got over the frustration and anxiety of my first attempt and reassembled myself.

I decided to ask the 4-H program coordinators what they thought would be a good program to hold, and they both suggested doing a workshop for children in the Cloverbuds age group of 5-8. This would be for those that are going to be in Cloverbuds and those that had just graduated from the program. So, I set out to get a whole new outline and program set up and into place. The week following my failed attempt at Independent Project 1 I had my entire Independent Project 2 created, outlined, and sent off for advertising. Now I'm looking at doing a Science Program for 5-8 year olds focusing on "Exploring Everyday Nature." We're going to explore water and land through activities like "Lakes in a Bottle" (a fun little spin off of "Oceans in a Bottle"), dirt pudding cups where we will learn about the different layers of soil, and also a "Will it Sink or Will it Float" game which will help tie everything that we learned about previously in the evening together.

My latest attempt at my Independent Project. Exploring Everyday Nature.

This next chapter of my internship is definitely going to be interesting and challenging. I don't have a background in teaching children, and I've never really had an interest in pursuing a career in anything but Adult Education, so this will be a learning experience for everyone, myself included. I don't doubt that I can do this, and do it well, it's just going to be somewhat foreign to me, and I'm not sure how to mentally prepare for such an event.

As for right now, I'm taking the days as they come, and I'm looking forward to finally being able to do my Independent Project while my internship slowly comes to close. Tomorrow the Monroe County Fair starts, and with that, the crazy show times start. I don't have any type of fair/showing background, so I'm not quite sure what I'm getting into, but I do know the importance this fair means to the community, so I hope help aid in the organizational fun during this time. 

This summer has proven to be a constructive effort in showing me what I can and want to do with my life in the next few years. Pushing myself outside of my comfort zone is the only way for me to figure out what I succeed at and what I need to work harder at in this line of work. I'm extremely thankful for everything I have  been able to do this summer, and I look forward to reporting back at the end of my time down here at Unit 22 Extension. 

Political Fundraisers & Agriculture!

This has been a very educating, rewarding, and busy summer so far! I am enjoying my internship with State Representative Norine Hammond and have been learning many new things as well as enhancing my knowledge of tasks I have already known how to do.  This summer I am working in Macomb, Illinois as a Legislative Assistant for the 93rd District of Illinois Representative.  I am one of three Legislative Assistants that the Representative goes to for many different reasons here at the District Headquarters.

So far in my internship I have had more responsibilities than I thought I would have.  In the month of June, one of the Legislative Assistants took a new job, leaving me with all of her responsibilities.  I had to learn quickly to fill her position.  I could not have asked for a better learning experience.  Representative Hammond and her head Legislative Assistant have been so helpful, kind, and educated when teaching me and informing me of news going on within the District as well as the State.  Besides receiving more job tasks, the last week of June I cut my left thumb open (I will spare you the details).  Unfortunately I am left handed so this made my internship tasks difficult as well as finishing up a 4-week summer class.  I am finally able to write again after 3 weeks and I am thankful that my thumb was not cut any worse.  During the healing process, Representative Hammond and I agreed to find new ways to complete some of the tasks and it was a learning process for both of us.  We definitely had some laughs along the way.

Two big things that I have gotten to be a part of with this internship are Representative Hammond's biggest event of the year (Golf Outing) and my Professional Experience assignment.  The Golf Outing this year had over 124 golfers and many volunteers.  As a Legislative Assistant I helped organize the event and helped with the preparation the day of the event.  Myself along with a new Legislative Assistant that is now in our office helped stake signs, serve food, sell raffle tickets, and assisted with any tasks that needed done throughout the day.

Below to the left is a picture of Lindsay (a former Legislative Assistant), Representative Hammond, and myself.  To the right is a "selfie" of myself and some of the college age volunteers who sold raffle tickets.  The last photo is a "group selfie" that Representative Hammond wanted to take.  This event was a blast and great opportunity to network with many companies and sponsors.

Lastly, I was fortunate to join Representative Hammond in meeting a group of approximately 25 college students from Charles Sturt University of Australia a week ago.  We met them on Western Illinois University's campus and I listened to questions that the Australians had about agriculture in our country versus their county.  After Norine spoke to the students about her role in agriculture students also asked how people spread the word about agriculture.  This is where I was able to talk about Teach Ag Day, FFA, WTF (Where's the Food Without the Farmer) Day, and AGED Club and how we make sure the community, state, and country understands the importance of agriculture and that we make sure people know the right story.  I was also able to tour Western's agriculture farms with Representative Hammond as she addressed issues that are happening with agriculture in West Central Illinois.  Through this experience, I was able to use my leadership and public speaking skills that I have learned through Agriculture Leadership. It was a great, unique experience.

Below is a picture of the Australian group, along with some WIU faculty, Representative Hammond, and myself.

First Half of Summer

I have gotten so many wonderful opportunities this summer. I created an incentive program for vet clinics and producers. If they buy so many dollars worth of vaccine they receive a gift from Elanco. I have clinics in Nebraska, Iowa, and South Dakota. I get to do ride alongs with sales representatives from MWI and Elanco. This allows me to observe different techniques that each rep uses and learn the different companies approaches. Elanco reps are much more laid back because all they have to do is offer product information since they do not make commission. They also worry solely about selling Elanco products and sell directly to the end user in most cases. MWI is required to know all manufacturer products. They get a percentage of commission so the more they sell, they more money they make.


I got the opportunity to go through vaccine training with the veterinarian who helped create and run trials on Titanium 5+PHM.  This was such an awesome experience because understanding the science of how it works allows me to have scientific conversation with the vets and allows for a stronger bond of trust. Science was never on a list of majors for me, I didn't even major in Animal Science. I learned that stepping out of my comfort zone and learning new subject matter was more exciting than I ever planned.


The most fun part has been the social interaction and networking I have got to do.  When selling vaccines I had to interact with the reps in the territory both Elanco and MWI, the veterinarians I was promoting the vaccines to, the producers who are interested in using the vaccines, the vet who created the vaccine, and all the upper management in both companies. If you ask me it was a lot of talking which I love to do. However it wasn't all hard work all the time. I have attached a picture of the College World Series game that I got to attend. Elanco sponsored the trip and all expenses were paid. Upper sales management, veterinarians, veterinarian consults, sales reps, and spouses were all present for the day of festivities. We had dinner at the came and got to get to know each other during the presentation. In Nebraska the weather has been less than forgiving so the presentation was about community involvement. Selling product is important but the people who buy it are a priority. Since tornadoes devastated part of my territory both companies encourage volunteering with relief campaigns. These are awesome companies who care about their customers!!!

Last week my co-worker, Shelia Stannard, and I attended the Sangamon County Ag Exploration Day to give seven twenty five minute presentation to eighty-nine kids ages K-7th grade. (You want to teach about birth control throw 89 screaming kids in a room together). We talked to the kids about  what cattle eat by making the now famous (well famous for kids in Sangamon county now that is) "cow chow" and cattle by-products by handing out "The Magic of the Moo" coloring book. And seriously what is better to a little kid than snacks and coloring? That is right nothing. Shelia started out the presentation by talking about the by-products and showing examples of each. We had a baseball, dog food, laundry detergent, crayons, deodorant, and more. We told students in the first group part of toothbrushes are made from parts from cattle and one student said he is never brushing his teeth again so we left that out of the next presentations and label that as a fail on our part but other than that the day went great. I followed Shelia's by-product knowledge by talking about what cattle eat. My idea was to show all of today's common feeds and have something that we eat represent it. I had cheerios represent corn, pretzels represent protein, coco puffs represent mineral, marshmallows represent water, and green food colored coconut to represent grass hay. Thanks to Shelia being an awesome cook and can create stuff like that. I first started by having an example of each cattle feed and asking the kids what it is and when they got it right I would follow by talking about the benefits of each feed. Then we made the "cow chow" by giving them each a feed scoop and got the feed out of the feed buckets as you can see in the photo. Okay they aren't real feed buckets and the feed scoop was a plastic cup but they are little kids lets be creative here. At the end of the day the information was well received and we got a lot of positive feedback from the people in charge and they told us they definitely want the IBA back next year as this year was the first time the IBA was in attendance. It feels great to have a positive impact on today's youth and to open the door for more opportunities for the IBA in the future.