05/11/ 2020: 9-10am: 1 hour

05/20/ 2020: 11-12am: 1 hour

Total Weekly Hours: 2
Total Hours to Date: 2
Internship Week 1:

The first week of my Public Health summer internship was different than many other

interns. This week was mostly full of confusion and frustration due to not have a stable

communication between my site coordinator and me. One week and a few days before the start

date, I reached out to my site coordinator twice, in hopes of getting some information about my

duties. I did not hear from my coordinator until Tuesday, saying that we will have a meeting on

Wednesday with all interns. During our meeting, the interns were offered another opportunity to

work with CORE (COVID-19 Relief Efforts). I found this opportunity fascinating, considering

this pandemic is a crucial aspect of Public Health. Several other interns were also interested in

working with CORE. Our site coordinator told us he would get back to us with our duties by the

next day. Unfortunately, we did not hear from him with our duties. We finally heard from Sam

Archbold, who works with the CORE Response. Sam will have a meeting with each of us on the

phone regarding our assignments. I am looking forward to working with CORE Response and

starting my duties next week.

Thankfully, the other interns and I have created a group text so that we can all be in

contact regarding our internship. It is nice to have a coworker bond even though we are doing an

internship virtually. Also, this lack of communication that I experienced has taught me that

things do not always run smoothly in the professional world. It is also important to understand

that our coordinators are doing their own job on top of also overseeing us interns. Even though I

was frustrated with the lack of communication, I took into consideration that my coordinator has
been extremely busy with the COVID-19 relief efforts. Although we had a rough first week, I am

very excited to start working with CORE Response.

5/20/2020: 12pm-1pm: 1 hour

5/23/2020: 4pm-6pm: 2 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 3
Total Hours to Date: 5

Internship Week 2

Things have been going really slow this week. Communication has been a difficulty for

me and all the CORE interns this week, just as last week. Early Wednesday morning we were

told that we would be receiving a call from our new site coordinator in a specific field in CORE.

These fields include operations, logistics and communications. Attached to this email from one

of our site coordinators, Sam Archbold, were two manuals and pamphlets to read and analyze.

These two documents were lengthy and took some time to read, but were very informative. One

of these documents was the Site Manager Manual. This manual consisted of a checklist of daily

operations, assistant checklists, site layouts, new volunteer flow charts, and faq sheets. The other

document was about community organization and local government partnerships. As a new

intern with CORE, these documents were very informative. Since we are not on site, these

manuals gave us an idea on how things run while out on the field.

We did not hear from our newly assigned coordinators until Friday. I unfortunately

missed the call I received from my new coordinator. She sent a very informative email to Sohpie

and I who will be working closely with this new coordinator. This email consisted of a list of

things she wants us to send her such as our resume, availability, interests and what we want to

get out of this internship. She also attached a document for us to fill out about our goals and how

we plan to accomplish and measure them. I wrote goals, which are to build confidence while

working professionally and making community partnerships, and secondly to learn effective

health promotion and education strategies. I really enjoyed completing this assignment because it

makes me analyze what I really want to get out of interning with CORE. I would like to look

back on the assignment at the end of my internship to see what I have accomplished. I emailed
my site coordinator back with all this information, but have not heard back. Although things

have been running slowly, I think that we are finally starting to get the ball rolling. I am excited

to see what assignments and projects I will be completing.

Tuesday (5/26/2020): 4 hours

Thursday (5/28/2020): 8 hours
Friday (5/29/2020): 5 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 17 hours
Total Overall Hours: 22 hours

Week 3 Journal
 My workload picked up this week since we finally got in contact with our site

coordinator. I have been placed in CORE’s Communications Team along with Sophie Hale,

another GCSU Public Health intern. It has been really helpful having a coworker to

communicate with about our assignments. Earlier this week we had our first meeting with Teni-

Ola where she discussed all the potential assignments that she has for us as of right now. She

explained almost all factors and why certain jobs need to be done. Teni-Ola stressed that things

are rapidly changing everyday, so to keep in mind that assignments may appear even when we

do not expect them. She also explained the softwares that we will be using, SmartSheet and

SalesForce. These two are CRMs, that manage elements of all the organizations that a business is

partnering with. This makes it easier for businesses to manage and organize all their contacts,

access information, and even get updates on when there needs to be orders made. Teni-Ola

mentioned how this CRM system creates healthier relationships with organizations because it

helps us maintain who has contacted what organization and when.

After our meeting, I still had some confusion about what exactly she wanted Sophie and I

to do. So we reached out to Teni-Ola who was more than happy to meet with us again to clear

things out. This made me feel more comfortable about reaching out if I have any questions. She

explained more clearly that what we had to do was basically just organizing the contacts for the

list of partnerships. After this is completed, we can move onto the CRM systems. This has been a

lengthy and tedious duty, since there are so many businesses around Atlanta. We had to organize

the contacts for non-profit organizations, local businesses, universities and schools, and media

outlets. We have a follow up meeting with Teni-Ola on Tuesday, where we will be getting an

update on what to do next.

Monday (6/1/2020): 6 hours
Tuesday (6/2/2020): 3 hours
Friday (6/5/2020): 7 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 16 hours
Total Overall Hours: 38 hours

Week 4 Journal

Week 4 of my internship with CORE has been similar to last week. Communication and

my workload is still a bit slow. We only had one meeting with Teni-Ola this week because the
CEO of CORE was in Atlanta so she was very busy with that. Some of the duties this week

consisted of continuing to finish flushing out the contacts, learning how to use the CRM

Smartsheet, and reviewing any media that CORE has been mentioned in. Teni-Ola also had us

search for CORE in several national and local media outlets. Having positive publicity in the

media is important to the communications team so that our partnerships and the community can

see the work the organization is doing. It is also crucial for spreading health awareness about the

COVID-19 pandemic and testing sites.

Finding contact information and organizing it is much more time consuming that I

thought it would be. The majority of work I did this week was finishing up the several lists of

Atlanta organizations and partnership on Google Sheets. Monday was also devoted to learning

how to use the CRM Smartsheet. There were several videos that I had to watch and take notes

on. I now have an account, so I played around on this site to learn how to work with it. I have

never really been great at working with technology, so learning this CRM system was a little

difficult. As my time with CORE continues, I believe that the more I use it, the more I will learn

about it. On Friday, Sophie and I met up at a local coffee shop to do our work together and learn

about the CRM system. This is when we ended up having a phone call with Teni-Ola so that we

can update her on our work.

Without the consistency in assignments and communication, I am very behind on hours. I

am very worried that this will affect my progress in this class. I am hopeful that things will get

better, but still feeling stressed out. Although I have faced these issues, I am trying to remain

positive and patient throughout the process.

Monday (6/8/2020): 5 hours
Tuesday (6/9/2020): 8 hours
Wednesday (6/10/2020): 5 hours
Thursday (6/11/2020): 6 hours
Friday (6/12/2020): 6 hours
Saturday (6/13/2020): 2 hours
Sunday (6/14/2020): 2 hours
Week 5 Total Hours: 34 hours
Total Overall Hours: 72 hours

Week 5 Journal

This week was definitely much busier than the past weeks. I am overwhelmingly behind

on my hours due to the 2 week delay on starting and miscommunication with my coordinators.
This week gave me hope for more busy weeks. Everyday I made sure to make some time to

watch tutorial videos for Smartsheet, Mailchimp and Excel. This helps me gain more knowledge

on these softwares, as well as giving me the additional hours I desperately need.

Monday was full of organizing and finishing up our Smartsheet documents. This is very

tedious work that requires great focus to make sure that there are no errors. Tuesday was the

longest day of the week and was full of multiple different tasks. I started the morning searching

for CORE in the media as well as social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and

Instagram. We then had a check-in meeting where Teni-Ola gave us an overview of everything

last week and what we will do this week. She also explained the importance of reading up about

CORE online because the city of Atlanta posted about our testing sites, but did not give us

recognition or credit. The post from Atlanta made it seem as if the city was operating the testing

site, not CORE. I found this really interesting and made me more aware of issues like this. I

spent the rest of the hours finishing up work for Mailchimp, inspecting social media and

Smartsheet duties.

On Wednesday, Teni-Ola and I had a much needed one on one meeting about my goals.

Teni-Ola had us fill out a goal form when we first started, but we never got to actually talking

about them. My two goals were to learn effective health promotion strategies and methods and to

gain confidence and skills when working with communicating with people not in person. Teni-

Ola mentioned that since she does not have the capacity to learn these effective promotional

methods, that it would be a really great idea for CORE for me to do a lot of research on them,

take notes, and present these ideas to her. I suggested that I could research promotional materials

from past epidemics/ pandemics, and see if we could learn from them. Also, communicating in

person comes very naturally to me, but over the phone makes me very nervous. Teni-Ola, who is
specialized in communications said that this is definitely something that she can help me with.

We will be beginning to make phone calls to organizations very soon, so she is helping us create

a script, and we will be doing role playing with that. She also suggested that I can do some

research on communication when asking for partnerships or fundraising. This research will be

beneficial to the script for contacting organizations that we have to write.

On Thursday and Friday, we had two meetings with Teni-Ola for our progress on the

Smartsheet documents. It also consisted of a lot of research and organizing. One article that I

have read is Organizational change - key to capacity building and effective health promotion by

Sue Heward, Cheryl Hutchins and Helen Keleher. I also made sure to get some research this

weekend. Excited to learn and get some more hours in this upcoming week.

Monday (6/15/2020): 7 hours

Tuesday (6/16/2020): 8 hours
Wednesday (6/17/2020): 7 hours
Thursday (6/18/2020): 6 hours
Friday (6/19/2020): 6 hours
Saturday (6/20/2020): 3 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 37 hours
Total Overall Hours: 109 hours

Week 6 Journal

Week six was a productive week for me. On Monday I started my day with doing some

more research on health promotion until we had our scheduled check in meeting with Teni-Ola.

After our meeting, I had some editing to the contact sheets to do. We had to distinguish and

record the relationship CORE had certain contacts and organizations. This is important to record

so that we can keep track of what certain partnerships have done with us, or what organizations

we need to follow up with. For example, certain organizations were given flyers and posters to
give out and promote, but they need to be followed up with so they can get up to date

information. Also, Teni-Ola wanted to connect us with someone from CORE who works with the

CDC because Sophie and I both had an interest in health promotion. This meeting was where we

met Aryn and she got our contact information.

Tuesday, we had a scheduled meeting with Aryn, which I was excited about. Aryn gave

us a game plan on how to go about researching information that we can put on CORE’s

newsletters. It was interesting to get advice on research and communication from someone who

works with the CDC. Aryn sent us many resources and training from the CDC for us to utilize.

One of our assignments was to gather information for a FAQ section on the newsletter. Aryn sent

us a research tool called Social Bearing, which is a searching engine for social media analytics.

Here we can research what the people on social media are asking and talking about on social

media.

On Wednesday I spend a lot of time going through the resources that Aryn sent us. One

of the training I completed was the CDC’s Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC).

After this training, I explored around and found a lesson called “Communication Challenges

Surrounding the COVID-19 Pandemic”. I was able to download the lesson as a presentation and

the PDF slides. I spent the remainder of my time analyzing and then did some routine social

media checks.

Thursday and Friday I continued to go through the documents that Aryn had sent us. We

were supposed to be sent a script sample to help create our own. We still have not received this

but I managed to try creating a rough draft. This was difficult since I do not have anything to

base it on but I think it was a good start. I continued my research into Saturday so I can get some

extra hours. I even found some helpful Youtube videos to expand my research. I am still behind
on my hours, but I am hoping that the CORE intern coordinators decide on a time for all interns

to have a meeting so we can discuss a big overall project.

Monday (6/22/2020): 6
Tuesday (6/23/2020): 6
Wednesday (6/24/2020): 7
Thursday (6/25/2020): 7
Friday (6/26/2020): 6
Saturday (6/27/2020): 3
Total Week 7 Hours: 35
Total Overall Hours: 144

Week 7 Journal

This week consisted of continuing assignments from last week and continuing research.

Developing a script to begin reaching out to organizations for partnerships, donations, etc. has

been slow work. We have been waiting on receiving a few documents that will aid us in creating

this. Teni-Ola and some others have been working on an “expectations” document which is

really important for us to have to create an official script. This document will help us see what

CORE needs or wants from certain organizations. This document is not finished yet but we were

given the list that they had so far. We are waiting on receiving an example script or template that

will help us. I have done some research on how to create a script, and so far have a few rough
drafts of what I think would work. Until we receive the finalized expectations document, I will

not create a final draft. Once Sophie and I collaborate and create a draft, Teni-Ola would like to

do some practice runs until we are ready to start making these phone calls.

We did not have our check in meeting until Wednesday because our coordinator was

traveling from D.C. and NYC. Here we discussed what more research we can do for the health

promotion and for the script writing. We also discussed our midterm evaluation. On Monday we

were sent the updated newsletter so we updated the Smartsheet forms with these contacts. I

continued my self guided research and the multiple online training sessions that Aryn sent us last

week. Everyday I also made sure to check up on the social media pages, as well as search for

CORE in any news articles. I also added a few more questions to the FAQ document I have. I

hope next week will bring some new assignments and starting to do our roll call script

conversations.
Monday (6/29/2020): 5 hours
Tuesday (6/30/2020): 5 hours
Wednesday (7/1/2020): 5 hours
Thursday (7/2/2020): 5 hours
Friday (7/3/2020): 5 hours
Sunday (7/5/2020): 1 hour
Total Weekly Hours: 26 hours
Overall Total Hours: 170 hours

Week 8 Journal

This week was slow in productivity and assignments. As I mentioned in my journal last

week, our coordinator has been promoted to teaching people working with CORE in other states

about communications. Since she has been traveling more, there is a slight lack of

communication. I could only get in about 5 hours of work each day because I was not assigned

any new work for this week.

I began my week just like every other week by reviewing the newsletters and updating

the Smartsheet document with the new testing sites. I continued to check up on the social media

pages to check for any errors or anything that needed to be corrected. I also searched the internet

for CORE’s name mentioned in any news pages or articles. It is really cool to see how much
media coverage CORE is doing and how they are being acknowledged for the great organization

that it is.

I am still working on my research on health communication and promotion. The research

I have done has really sparked more of an interest in health communications as a possible career

of mine. Communications has always been something I struggled with, but working alongside

the communications department and seeing what all goes into this realm of work has been very

informative and interesting.

We finally had our weekly check in meeting on Friday with Teni-Ola and the

communications team. Teni-Ola mentioned how there has been such a large surge in COVID-19

testing that we have to put a pause of creating a script for partnerships. She explained that since

we are so busy with testing in the Atlanta area right now, it does not make much sense to focus

on new partnerships. She also assigned us to create a “legacy document” for our role as interns

for the next group after Sophie and I have completed our internship. CORE will be hiring new

people very soon and I have considered thinking about applying for one of these positions. I

think this could help me continue my interest in health communications and give me some more

experience before I start my career.

Monday (6/6/2020): 5 hours
Tuesday (6/7/2020): 6 hours
Wednesday (6/8/2020): 6 hours
Thursday (6/9/2020): 5 hours
Friday (6/10/2020): 5 hours
Sunday (6/12/2020): 3 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 30 hours
Total Overall Hours: 200 hours

Week 9 Journal

Week 9 of my internship was very similar to the last week. Starting the week off looking

into the media pages and the updated newsletter. I updated the Smartsheet document with the

new testing sites for this week just like we do every Monday. I then searched the social media

pages and media outlets for CORE. Since reaching out to new partnerships has been put on a

pause due to the surge in testing, we have not had anything new to work on. We continued with

our contact management work and I did some extra research to add some hours to my days.

At our weekly check in meeting we found out that there have been some issues with

certain testing sites. Since testing has been at an all time high, that means sites are running out of

kits much faster. When the kits run out, the sites have no choice but to close for the day. So this

week some testing sites have had to close earlier than expected or postponed. Teni-Ola also

explained another situation that they got tangled up with due to a lack of communication
between the organization and our department. One of the testing sites did not respond or read an

email from CORE explaining that they would need to postpone the testing site due to a delay in

shipment of kits. Due to the lack of communication, people from the communities still came and

lined up to get tested, but no one was there. This caused issues and even caused the media to

reach out to CORE for a statement on the situation. This made me understand that things will go

wrong, it is just a matter of how you handle it. Not all partnerships will be good or loyal, but all

we can go is move forward and learn how to avoid this from happening again.
Monday (7/13/2020): 5 hours
Tuesday (7/14/2020): 5 hours
Wednesday (7/15/2020): 6 hours
Thursday (7/16/2020): 6 hours
Friday (7/17/2020): 6 hours
Saturday (7/18/2020): 2 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 30
Total Overall Hours: 230

Internship Week 10

I cannot believe that there are only two weeks left of my internship with CORE. I was

worried from the start about hours at the beginning but I am feeling so much better now that I

am caught up. Just like every week, I began my work with checking up on social media pages

and updating the testing site partnerships on Smartsheet. We did not have many changes in sites

this week which was good. We were assigned to continue the contact management that we have

already been doing.

Wednesday we had our weekly check in meeting with the communications team. We

discussed the testing surge and the high number of cases in Georgia right now. Teni-Ola

explained how swamped and busy these sites have been. Each site is now limited to 500 testing

kits. This means that the site has to shut down all 500 are administered, which is always usually

before the original closing time. People come hours before opening and line up to ensure that

they get a test. We also discussed our contact management project, which has been extended to

not only Georgia. Teni-Ola now wants contact information from states with the highest COVID-
19 cases in the Southeast. The deadline for this is this upcoming week, which puts us at a time

crunch.

On Thursday, Sophie and I had a meeting with Aryn to discuss our research. This was a

short check in meeting, but was helpful to update Aryn. After this meeting, we were in another

meeting with Teni-Ola about our goals. We discussed if our goals were met, and if there is

anything else we can do to make sure they are fulfilled. Even though we no longer need the

script for partnerships, Teni-Ola suggested that Sophie and I still create one and rehearse it to the

communications team. This way we get some experience with communicating to organizations

about partnerships, even though the actual presentation of this to companies has been cancelled.

We present our scripts on Tuesday.

The rest of the week I worked hard on getting these contact sheets complete. I even did a

little bit of work on Saturday because I have a lot of work to do this upcoming week. I am

looking forward to presenting my script to the team but am a little nervous. I hope to receive

some helpful feedback from everyone.

Monday (7/20/2020): 5 hours
Tuesday (7/21/2020): 4 hours
Wednesday (7/22/2020): 4 hours
Thursday (7/23/2020): 5 hours
Friday (7/24/2020): 5 hours
Total Weekly Hours: 18 hours
Total Overall Hours: 253 hours

Internship Journal 11

On Monday this week we updated the Smartsheet document with the new testing sites for

this week. On Tuesday, we had our mock cold-calling call on Zoom with our communications

team which went better than I expected. Sophie and I created a rough draft for a script and acted

like we were talking to the Cobb County School District. After we presented our script to our

team, each person gave us their critique. I learned a lot from what they said. It is important to

speak clearly and make sure you know what you are talking about. Introducing CORE, what it

stands for, and our mission is also important. We have to explain what CORE provides in a

partnership rather than just saying what is expected of them. Also learned that a lot of people like

to hear that Sean Penn is the founder of CORE, so it is valuable to mention that when seeking

partnerships. After our mock cold-call, Teni-Ola gave up some updates about what is happening

on the testing sites. Sites have continued to be really busy and have very long lines. Next week,

our contact management project is due, then my job with CORE is complete. One last meeting

will take place for Sophie and I to go through the CRM Software and show Teni-Ola all the

updates.

This week just consisted of finishing up our contact management and touching up on the

legacy document. It was a busy week in regards to the course and finishing up project deadlines
that are closely approaching. I can’t believe there is only 1 week left of my time interning with

Community Organized Relief Efforts!