Summer Internship Program: Frederick County

Primary Program Area Focus: ANR (Horticulture)

1. Describe your plans for this internship.  (i.e. What specifically will the intern be doing?)

Though the focus will be Horticulture Programming, the 2024 VCE-Frederick intern will also work with agents and staff involved in educational programing related to 4-H Youth Development and Family Consumer Sciences – Food Nutrition, Health, and Wellness. Ideally, the intern will have marketing and communication skills to help develop program marketing, newsletters, and PowerPoint presentations.

The Horticulture intern will work with the Northern Shenandoah Valley Master Gardeners (MG) to deliver home/consumer horticulture education programs, work with 4-H youth in the Junior Master Gardener vegetable garden and the Strasburg Community Garden workshops/children’s garden, work on invasive pest programming and scouting related to Spotted Lanternfly, aid in the offering of well water clinics offered by the Virginia Household Water Quality Program, assist at the MG Help Desk, write a regularly reoccurring newsletter about the Help Desk findings, and participate in tree fruit and vegetable production workshops.  The intern will have the opportunity to visit the Alson H. Smith Jr. Agricultural and Extension Research Center as well as offer Extension programing (tree fruit and grape production) with local specialists stationed at the center.

2. Describe the knowledge / skills you expect the intern to gain from this experience.

Upon completion, the intern should have a well-rounded idea of the various sectors of VCE and the different educational programming opportunities that we provide our local communities.  The intern will have had the chance to assist farmers involved with commercial horticulture production, improved communication skills and helped homeowners by answering lawn/garden plant and pest questions, worked alongside agents and volunteers to deliver home horticulture and ornamental horticulture educational workshops, gained experience and knowledge in the skills of training and managing volunteers, developed a better understanding of food preservation, built knowledge and confidence in working with youth, and gained the personal reward of watching and assisting youth grow through their own learning and discovery process.  The intern will assist agents in the development, delivery, and evaluation of educational programs.  This experience will show the individual how to identify needs and to assess impacts and skills gained by participating clients.

3. How will the intern learn about the breadth of VCE and our various program areas?

The intern will work with agents housed in Frederick County and will primarily be a part of ANR-Horticulture program offerings in Planning District 7 (Clarke, Frederick, Page, Shenandoah, and Warren Counties) but also 4-H, FCS.  The intern will experience interactions between agents and specialists as well as interactions with local county government and the local Extension Leadership Council.