With the start of COVID-19, stay-at-home orders, and a change in the world as we knew it, I knew I needed to do something to help out. I just didn't know what.
While I was fortunate enough that my internship program continued, many of my friends were not as lucky. Their internships and job offers were rescinded left at right, and many others had plans to work at camps, work in retail, volunteer, or travel the world.
I wanted to find a way to give back, especially as I was grateful for all the opportunities and experiences I had before.
So, with a need and project in mind, I decided to recruit a group of interns to gain professional experience and exposure while also helping in developing a site and COVID-19 resource for families and students. Many of them jumped at the opportunity! They wanted to pursue a project with meaning and purpose while also learning more and exploring their interests. Throughout May I kept recruiting a team of my friends and their friends. In mid-May, met over Zoom to discuss our goals. Everyone was excited to get started. I loved the energy in the room! They had so many new ideas and couldn't wait to get started.
It wasn't an easy process. We needed to create an entire new brand from scratch with very little resources. I decided that I needed three main teams: Content Creation & Research, Programming & Tech, and SEO & Exposure. With three intern team leads, we were ready to get started!
Our first goal was to get the site up and running and create content as the baseline for the site. It was exciting collaborating with a group of people who hadn't actually gotten to know each other in person or at all. I knew many of the interns, but for the most part, we were all starting from scratch in both creating the resource and making connections.
(Being the person that I am) In addition to the work, I knew we needed to have bonding sessions! I scheduled Trivia nights, college hangs, and drop-in hours so we could all really get to know each other and feel more comfortable working together.
On June 1, we launched our site.
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