Projects & Reflections - Small Family Summer Fellowship by Megan S
My name is Megan Schmidt and I am this summer’s Small Family Fellow at Freedom. What does that mean? This summer I have been working part time behind the counter at Freedom Cafe, learning the workings of hospitality and making delicious food and drinks for customers. The other part of my job is working on projects for Freedom Cafe that relate to enhancing volunteer experience, creating outreach materials, composing educational content about trafficking, and more! As I’m approaching the halfway mark of my internship, I’d like to take some time to share a bit about my experience.
My favorite part of working behind the counter has been making crepes! It’s a meditative process for me trying to perfect the art of spreading the batter just right and so satisfying to see the beautiful result (when all goes well). I also love making iced lattes; I’d say they’re our most popular drink right now, so it’s always nice to get into my latte-flow-state.
My favorite part about my behind the scenes internship work has been constructing a wall of honor for donors and volunteers (sneak peek at an in-process sketch up for the design Right!). I’ve been given full creative freedom on this project and it’s been so fun to try to find a cost effective, but still beautiful design for our wall. From the beginning stages of the project to getting to see it start to come to life, it’s been wonderful to exercise my problem solving and creativity to honor and thank our awesome community members! Aside from the wall of honor, another project I’ve been working on lately has been creating educational content about human trafficking and conscious consumerism that will be presented next semester during open mic nights. It has been a challenge trying to fit such an important discussion into smaller digestible time frames, but rewarding to put the work in for such an important educational opportunity.
A skill I’ve been improving on through this process is taking initiative! I’ve had freedom to really put myself into these projects and take them in a direction informed by my own interests, which is awesome, but was also scary at first. I’ve had to learn, and am still learning to trust my judgment and understand that part of what’s cool about this internship is everyone brings something new to the table each summer!
What has surprised me at first working at Freedom was the community members. I can flounder behind the counter sometimes, but our patrons’ patience and kindness always shines through. Their warmth speaks to the connected atmosphere of freedom. I was also surprised by how many kinds of coffee drinks there are!! I truly had no idea how distinct a cappuccino is from a latte, or an iced coffee from a cold brew before working behind the counter.
On a more serious note, through this internship I have learned so much about human trafficking and have been shocked by the commodification of human lives that is present in so many industries. It is truly saddening and incomprehensible that anyone can justify such acts of cruelty. I have learned that, though full brand transparency is difficult to come by, there are brands that value ethical practices. It is our job as consumers to seek out these brands so as not to invest in the business of trafficking.
Thanks to The Freedom Cafe for providing me with this summer opportunity and for supporting a community of ethical consumers!
Megan