Hello everyone,

I am in the last week of my internship at the Oregon State University Extension Office in Malheur County and I have had a great summer! If you’ve read my first blog, you might remember that I was looking forward to working with 4-H youth in Malheur County. 4-H was my primary focus over the course of my internship and our fair was July 30th-August 3rd. I got to spend a lot of time with 4-H youth and work to offer them the opportunities they deserve. This summer, I spent a lot of my time preparing for fair and also helping youth with their livestock at fair. My big internship project was the show-clothes drive I hosted. This was so much fun and a great way to allow the greater community to become involved and to help develop 4-H youth.

Through my internship this summer, I have learned quite a few things and also struggled with some others. The main struggle I’ve worked to overcome is the disappointment with my internship project. While I had a ton of show-clothes donations come in, I struggled to gain traction with the youth and did not have as large of a turn-out as I would have hoped. The show-clothes drive is something that I want to become an annual thing to continue to offer the opportunity to look good and feel good in the show ring! I am so grateful to those that donated to the show-clothes drive and I can’t wait to see how it grows and adapts in the future.

A key takeaway from my internship is the importance Extension has in working with and in the community. Malheur County is a rural, ag-based county and it is important for the community to stay connected and have the services and opportunities that Extension offers. From questions about yield rates, knowledge about wildfires, 4-H entry questions, or just offering our conference room as a place for people to gather, Extension offers it all. I am grateful to have been a part of offering these services to Malheur County.

Lastly, a piece of knowledge that I hope to use later is something I learned from the office manager at the Extension office in Malheur County: “Breathe in, Breathe Out, Move on”. It is easy for me to get hung up on things that didn’t go my way, or that I might have accidentally messed up. If I breathe in, breathe out and move on, I can move past those things and continue to grow. Through this internship, I have grown leaps and bounds in both my professional and my personal skills. This has been a wonderful opportunity and I am incredibly thankful to have been given the opportunity to intern with OSU Extension.