Kathrine Groh

Responsibilities

Some of the responsibilities of being the Operations Intern with Live Healthy Iowa was the implementation of Live Healthy Iowa's 10 Week Wellness Challenge, and the coordination of the Strut Your Pup and Burst Your Thirst Challenges. In addition, I assisted with other LHI events, such as Go The Distance May, Live Healthy Iowa Kids Track Championships, and the Live Healthy Iowa 5K. I also updated websites with challenge details and resources, as well as event information for the various challenges. Lastly, I created a significant amount of emails to be sent to challenge participants as well as potential sponsors and partners for our challenges.

Accomplishments

My greatest accomplishment would definitely be the Strut Your Pup Challenge. The bones of the challenge were already in place, but it was my job to make the challenge my own. I reached out to 40+ animal shelters across Iowa, 100's of potential donors, created a partnership with the American Red Cross, the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, and many more to ensure beneficial material would be in the weekly emails for participants. I created all kinds of documents and prepared fun recipes for the emails to make them come alive and for participants to get the most out of it. I also tried my hardest to get the word out by emailing the greek sorority presidents at ISU, tabling at the Iowa State Blood Drive, and posting on various social media platforms. There is so much more that goes into a challenge like this than I had ever imagined, and I am so grateful for the experience to be able to plan it.

What advice would you give?

Go into your internship open-minded and don't be afraid to ask for help. This is an opportunity for you to learn and grow so take full advantage of it. Also, don't be afraid to ask for more work if you want more to do and don't hesitate on giving your input. Something that I learned was that a new perspective is welcomed (at least at LHI) and they were looking for ways and ideas to make things the best they possibly can. Have fun with it, you never know the connections you will make and the places you will be able to go with this experience.