The Land Connection is starting a series of blog posts introducing the members of our staff to you, our readers and supporters! Come take a closer look at the heart of our organization: the staff members who work hard to keep TLC thriving.
Over the next few weeks, be prepared to see a series of individual profiles of our staff members and get to know The Land Connection a little better! We will start off the first two weeks introducing our interns, starting with Stephanie Fenty, who started working with us in February of this year:
Summer Intern–Stephanie Fenty
Hello! I am a senior at Illinois Wesleyan University, studying English Writing and Philosophy. Through my interest in philosophy, I competed in the National Ethics Bowl tournament this year in San Antonio, TX. I love writing creatively but I have grown increasingly interested in journalism, and writing about the world around me. As a jokester at heart, I love to make people laugh through my writing while informing them about issues I care about.
Living in a small island off the coast of Sicily for a semester, I came to see firsthand the health and societal benefits that come from buying fresh, local organic food every day. I will never forget the vibrant colors of the fresh market, the smiling faces of the vendors and locals, and the tight knit family feeling of it all. There were no prepackaged plastic containers, no cold self-checkout counters. This was the shopping destination of choice for the locals, not the grocery stores, so the fresh grown food was in high demand and therefore, high supply. This is a large part of the future I want for communities here—for everyone to realize the great benefits of fresh grown produce and to work to support the farmers that grow it rather than the companies that mass manufacture vegetables.
I discovered The Land Connection while looking for a non-profit to do a project for my Seminar in Journalism course at school. I stumbled across them, finding that many of our interests overlapped and so came in to talk. I was welcomed by Cara and Terra immediately and had a wonderful time learning from them and helping to work on the promotion of the play that TLC put on this year, “What Will Be Your Legacy.” We worked together for months on this project and when it was over, it was tough to say goodbye. So I didn’t!
I look forward to the projects I will be working on this summer and can’t wait to dig my hands in and watch TLC grow.
