The end of my internship

The end of my internship

Last Wednesday was the last day of my internship at Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation.  It was difficult to wrap my head around the fact that I had been interning for 3x a week for a total of 3 months.  I do not know how 3 months went by so quickly!  It was so sad to leave all of my good friends at Bear Necessities.  The amount of time and effort they put into granting a “Bear experience” for a child with cancer is beyond amazing!

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I never realized how time consuming it is to plan an experience with someone.  We have to make many calls to find someone who is willing to help us with donations (trust me, there are people out there who are not willing to help).  I have gained so much knowledge during my short time at Bear Necessities.  I became a pro at sales-force and filing/sending non-profit paper work.  I learned how to talk to businessmen and leave very detailed 10-second voice-mails.  I learned that you do not stop at a no.  I learned how a desperate and helpless mother sounds like, but I also learned how happy a child can sound like.  I learned that people are not nice, but I learned that some are willing to give more than they have.

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This internship, not only brightened me with new knowledge, but it touched me spiritually.  Working as a Certified Nurses’ Assistant for 5 years, I became very good at talking to family members after the death of a father or mother.  I became good at this because this was all I would see.  I was able to talk about the wonderful life that this person lived, and reminisced with the other family members about his or her life.  But what do you say to mothers who have lost their one year old?  This internship opened up challenges, but nonetheless made more conscious about a different aspect on life.

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I am happy to say that my time with Bear Necessities is not completely over, yet.  I loved this internship so much that the 20 hours a week was something I looked forward to every week.  I believe that it emanated to them because I was asked if I could keep volunteering with the Spanish-speaking families.  All I have to do is make calls and translate; of course, I said yes!  I look forward to this new adventure, because the excitement on the kids’ voices is indescribable!  Next week, is my first week making phone calls with the Spanish-speaking families; I will keep you updated 🙂

 

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