Summer Internship Program: Greensville County/City of Emporia

Primary Program Area Focus: 4-H

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

The Greensville/Emporia VCE internship will provide a great overview of Virginia Cooperative Extension programming, with special focus on 4-H youth development. The intern will work under the direction of the 4-H Extension Agent.

Duties of the intern will include, but are not be limited to:

• Using skills learned from college courses and related experiences to plan a 4-H day camp or enrichment program for local youth.

• Marketing assistance - creating promotional items for upcoming programs.

• 4-H Junior Summer Camp: July 29th - August 2nd

  • Assist in planning camp activities – class schedules, room lists, etc.

  • Prepare pre-camp paperwork and assist in camp logistics 

  • Plan and assist teen and adult counselor trainings and maintain required training records

  • Supervise campers and teen counselors while at camp

  • Assist with teen camp trainings

  • Develop curriculum and possibly teach a class at camp

• Assisting with 4-H Livestock Show preparations 

• Assisting in summer enrichment programming held at the local public schools

• Learning VCE structure and resources in order to guide clients to the proper available programming, agents, and publications

• Learning the basics of an office environment including proper etiquette, presentation, and teamwork skills in order to succeed in future endeavors.

• Covering the office when other Extension staff are out of office.

The intern will also provide administrative support to the Greensville/Emporia unit, attend and support club meetings, manage the 4-H social media accounts, develop marketing tools, and collaborate with community partners and volunteers.

2.  Describe the knowledge / skills you expect the intern to gain from this experience.The intern will work closely with the 4-H Agent, Extension staff, and Community Partners in Greensville/Emporia to gain knowledge/skills in:

The intern will work closely with the Greensville/Emporia 4-H Agent and Extension staff to gain knowledge/skills in:

• Awareness of VCE program areas and corresponding events.

• Understanding of the correlation between VCE programming and community viability.

• Working with youth ages 5-18

• Working with underserved audiences and minority youth 

• Youth behavior management

• Decision making and conflict resolution

• Interpersonal and communication skills both within VCE and with collaborating organizations

• Organizational skills

• Curriculum development for youth

• Records management

• Risk management

• Computer skills (i.e. Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Publisher, Canva)

• Provide supervision and learn leadership skills necessary for teaching and facilitating youth projects;

• Engage in different types of 4-H activities from summer day camps, overnight camping, club meetings, in-school facilitation, and after-school enrichment

• Learn the importance of scheduling and efficient use of time and resources for program management;

• Learn the value in evaluation procedures of youth programming for future program improvements and record keeping.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  3. How will the intern learn about the breadth of VCE and our various program areas?The primary goal of the VCE internship is to ensure that the intern learns about and understands the breadth of Virginia Cooperative Extension programming. To ensure the intern in Greensville/Emporia is learning all that VCE has to offer, the intern will participate in monthly staff meetings and attend other important Extension meetings that arise to learn about all components of VCE. The intern will have the opportunity to experience the various delivery modes of Extension programming during their internship. This will be a hands-on internship in which the intern will learn how to research, plan, prepare, implement and evaluate their own 4-H youth program in a program area of their choice. The intern will learn about the history, mission and goals of Extension, as well as the connection between Extension and the two land-grant universities, Virginia Tech and Virginia State University. The intern will primarily work with the 4-H Agent in youth development programs, however he/she will also have the opportunity to participate in ANR and FCS programs as they arise.