What is LINK?
LINK (Leading Internships for New Knowledge) Internships are a three week internship that Animas High School Juniors do from late April through mid May. The purpose of these internships is to give students real world job experience in high school. Regular classes end for the internships so students can give these their utmost attention. For more information on LINK Internships visit: ahsinternships.weebly.com.
WeFill Colorado:
WeFill is a small business in Durango, CO. Their mission is to reduce plastic waste by having sustainable household products like laundry detergent, shampoos, and soaps, for you to refill your own containers with. That way you don’t buy a plastic product every time you need a household product. They also sell alternatives to plastic like reusable sandwich wraps and metal straws. I was originally going to intern with the brand director of CCS Matt Price, CCS is an online skateboard and snowboard shop. That fell through and Janae offered me this internship at WeFill, I called Cristin and it seemed really cool so I chose to do it. https://wefillcolorado.com/
Reflection:
My internship taught me a lot about networking and built my confidence in reaching out to different businesses. I learned a lot about networking through setting up radio and newspaper interviews. I did have some previous experience with this from Sophomore Inspire Week. For Sophomore Inspire Week I was required to call businesses and ask them for donations for the new Juniper School playground. I realized the professional world isn’t always as daunting as it might seem, everyone who I contacted to advertise what we were doing was very interested and tried to help us out however they could.
I was extremely challenged making the auction website. There were so many different aspects to set up, I got very overwhelmed at first but just worked through it piece by piece.
LINK did make me consider learning more about networking and marketing which I didn’t expect. I don’t know if I will do anything in those career fields but I do enjoy them more than I thought. I think if I were to be networking or advertising for a skateboard company like I would have been with CCS I could be very interested in it. I was extremely helpful with all the online aspects of my project. I set up most of the auction, took all emails from bidders, and set up newspaper interviews. The only goals I have at this point for senior year are to get into college and do well in school. I don’t have a lot of ideas for what career I’m going to pursue or what I’m going to do in college but I’m going to continue to explore what careers interest me. To accomplish getting good grades and being accepted into college I need to actively think about college, and stay motivated in school. I’m going to continue to pursue my interests, skateboarding, traveling, ect. throughout the rest of high school, into my gap year, and in college.
I was extremely challenged making the auction website. There were so many different aspects to set up, I got very overwhelmed at first but just worked through it piece by piece.
LINK did make me consider learning more about networking and marketing which I didn’t expect. I don’t know if I will do anything in those career fields but I do enjoy them more than I thought. I think if I were to be networking or advertising for a skateboard company like I would have been with CCS I could be very interested in it. I was extremely helpful with all the online aspects of my project. I set up most of the auction, took all emails from bidders, and set up newspaper interviews. The only goals I have at this point for senior year are to get into college and do well in school. I don’t have a lot of ideas for what career I’m going to pursue or what I’m going to do in college but I’m going to continue to explore what careers interest me. To accomplish getting good grades and being accepted into college I need to actively think about college, and stay motivated in school. I’m going to continue to pursue my interests, skateboarding, traveling, ect. throughout the rest of high school, into my gap year, and in college.
My Project:
My project was the online auction. Britt Blasdell did a studio art project in the fall of 2020 where students made art on canvases with different recycled or discarded materials (“Trash Art”). I auctioned off those nine pieces that were originally donated to Cristin at WeFill. Cristin wanted to support a local non profit with the money we raised, so I suggested the Hive and their indoor skatepark project. To get word out about the auction I went on Local First Radio, was interviewed by the Durango Herald, and the Telegraph. Once we had exhausted our resources for advertising about the auction we started posting a photo a day of the art on Instagram. The second week was a lot of troubleshooting and fixing whatever glitches the auction website had. The entire time we were promoting the auction we were also promoting Cristin’s business/mission of reducing plastic waste. We were able to raise $380 dollars and used that to buy the Hive a rail for their indoor skatepark. I’m super happy with the outcome of my internship. It will benefit the Durango skate community for years to come.
Link to the Auction website: https://event.auctria.com/db301df6-012b-4e5a-8ea3-5b1489f81ae4/
Cristin and I on Local First Radio with Table to Farm Compost.