Greetings from Region 4! As June comes to a close, the Rising Star Interns in North Central Iowa are gearing up for the final month of their internship. The team is starting to see a few fruits of their hard work and planning, which has been very rewarding!
On Monday, the team traveled to Ames to participate in the Rising Star Career Exploration Day on campus. There they received a tour of the Horticulture Research Farm (very impressive) and they learned about apple production and even got to step onto the turf grass grown for ISU Athletics. Throughout the rest of the day the interns heard from Extension professionals working in different fields, including Ag and Natural Resources, Community and Economic Development, and Human Sciences. It was a great experience and the team learned a lot about the many career options available through ISU Extension and Outreach.
On Tuesday the interns got their hands dirty as they worked in the Cerro Gordo Growing Together Iowa garden. Along with county director Sarah DeBour, the interns worked alongside a master gardener and enjoyed spending a few hours weeding and mulching.
Wednesday kept the Rising Stars very busy as they went to 3 different meetings to further discuss their project progress. The morning started off with a meeting at Lincoln Intermediate school, where the team updated administration on the project objectives. There they met with the new vice principal and he was very excited about the greenhouse and the plans to incorporate it into the curriculum. In the afternoon, the interns met with Mitchell county director Darla Olson to further discuss the community gardens in Osage. The team also met with 2 Osage Park and Rec employees who will be continuing on the community gardens project next spring, and got their input and feedback. The interns were sure to beat the heat by stopping at a local drive-in for ice cream on their way out of town.
Finally, for their last meeting of the day, they traveled to Charles City in Floyd county to meet with the Charles City Farmers Market vendors. The team is hoping to help them rebrand their social media pages by creating a logo and posting templates. It was great to get their feedback as to how they would like their market to be promoted.
The rest of the week flew by with independent project work and a trip to Central Gardens in Clear Lake for Aleyda to capture images of plants and flowers for the Central Gardens handbook she is working on.
The interns are glad for the upcoming long holiday weekend, but are excited to continue their work on their projects. Bring on week 8!