Week 1 & 2 in Region 11

This summer, Region 11 interns will be working in Linn and Benton Counties. Lila will focus on the Linn County project, creating a design for a new grandstand and Keira will be working in Benton County carrying out new ideas for the local gardens and how they can positively impact the Benton community.

Research Round-Up

This Week the Region 11 interns have been working to gather information about our projects by talking to professionals in the field. We have toured the Linn County Fair Grounds, local food pantries, and Benton County’s Old School Produce. We have learned about the history and how we can help prepare for the future in each place. 

We started off this week by meeting our office coworkers, getting use to our office spaces, and learning about the “The Six Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni. This is a process that Linn County staff are using to understand how work gets done and how their team can work together to utilize their strengths (Geniuses). We took the Working Genius Assessment test to see what areas of work we excel in and what frustrates us. We learned that we have very different working geniuses, and that it is a good thing because these differences allow us to collaborate and think of our projects from different perspectives, fully solving them in all areas.

We had a lot of fun this week meeting our master gardeners and groundskeepers, and learning from the professionals in our projects. We even met the new interns who made a lot of noise while we were trying to work, they say that it’s okay since they work for cheep!

Hands-on Garden Experience

In Benton County Keira and Lila went to the Old School Produce Company in Benton, where they learned about the history of the old school and how it became the non-profit garden it is today. They toured the Vinton and Belle Plaine food pantries and took notes on the nutrition provided by the pantry. Right now, they are thinking about what can be done to reduce nutrition insecurity. Keira and some other garden volunteers revamped some of the beds from the 3rd on 3rd community garden in Vinton for an education garden. This week we chose beds from the garden and worked with young volunteers to do some extensive weeding on the vacant beds and the perennial strawberry beds, which now have a lot more room to grow. This week Keira is contacting local summer programs to organize Day Camps about gardening and nutrition. 

Fairground Tour and Research

The project in Linn County is to assist the fair board in designing a new grandstand for their grounds. Lila will take the lead on this project to create some concept sketches and imagery to present to the fair board and to the public. To start off this project, we began with a tour of the Linn County Fairgrounds to get a better idea of what the new design should entail. Lila and Keira also toured the Overlook Pavilion at Pinicon Ridge Park in Central City, Iowa to study potential president buildings. Lila has been busy this past week conversing with fair staff, meeting with local architects, and creating preliminary models and sketches to gather information about the project!