by Christian Honig, Summer Student Contributor
This was my second summer working at reachAbility, so I came into it already knowing the people, how the organization works, and roughly where my skills could fit. Last summer I focused a lot on outreach, marketing, technology, and design. This year, I wanted to find a way to make a greater impact instead of just taking care of a few smaller projects here and there.
This year, I think I found that role.
Most of my work this summer fell under digital marketing and design. I’ve made videos, brochures, and other materials that help show people what reachAbility does and how we can help. One of the biggest things I learned early on was how careful that communication needs to be. reachAbility deals with a lot of sensitive topics, so the wording really matters.
At the beginning of the summer, I needed quite a bit of input to make sure what I was creating felt right for reachAbility. As the summer went on, I learned more about the language, the dos and don’ts, as well as the various accessibility features that are required on everything reachAbility produces. Only a few weeks in, I found myself trusted to take projects much further on my own without always needing someone else to give them a final touch.
Being the youngest employee here by quite a few years, and only being on the job for a few months in the summer, I was definitely curious about how seriously any ideas I brought to the table would be taken. I found people listened, took notes, asked questions, and eventually started coming back to me with questions after trying out some of the ideas I was bringing to the office. My age seemed to matter a lot less than the fact that I was showing up, learning, and contributing ideas with the rest of the team who trusted I knew what I was talking about and wanted to help the agency succeed.
That same kind of trust showed up in how my workload was managed this summer. I never felt micromanaged, but that doesn’t mean expectations were low. Projects still had deadlines, priorities were clear, I got feedback when I needed it, and in the end I felt the quality of my work was valued. When new work came up, people didn’t just keep piling it on. We would look at what I was already doing together and figure out what actually needed to come first.
I also found a level of flexibility that I haven’t heard many people my age describe in their summer jobs. When I got sick mid-placement term and had to unexpectedly miss a week, nobody tried to rush me back. When I returned, they made sure I was actually ready and that my workload was manageable. When you’re only working somewhere for two months, missing a whole week can put a serious dent in your productivity, but the team helped me get things back on track.
From talking to friends, I’ve learned that most summer jobs fall into two extremes. You either have very little meaningful work to do, or you end up being given every small job that nobody else wants. My experience at reachAbility hasn’t really been either of those. The videos I’ve made have actually been posted. The brochures and ads I’ve designed have been sent to print and will form the basis of reachAbility’s outreach campaigns this fall. The systems I’ve helped introduce can still be used after my summer position is over, and I believe they will be. Nothing I’ve worked on has felt like it was just made to keep me busy.
Ultimately, that’s what made this more than just a summer job. I got to build skills and learn about how a nonprofit agency works, but more importantly I got to contribute to that work in a way that felt meaningful, and that will live on after my work term ends.
To see some of Christian’s marketing work for reachAbility, stay tuned to our social media channels this fall:
Facebook: facebook.com/reachability.org
Instagram: instagram.com/reachabilityns
