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Brian Parks ’17 A True YoungLife Leader

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On The job photo6 Essential Things that Consist of Being a YoungLife Leader
First off, I just want to thank the Lilly Endowment for giving me this once in a lifetime opportunity of being able to intern for YoungLife. This was the incredible experience and one I will never forget.

Alternate Fundraisers
YoungLife is a non-profit organization so for it to exist funds must be raised. I found three ways to raise funds for YoungLife at Tech. The three were Restaurants, Activities, and Do-It-Yourself fundraisers. I created many proposals for YoungLife for Tech to follow through if they wanted to do a certain fundraiser within those categories.

Alumni Relations
YoungLife Tech has many alumni who are off into the world and doing their own thing, so it’s very important to stay in contact with all the individuals as much as possible. Sam and I created a spreadsheet with all of the former YoungLife affiliates, and we had about 150 total. We also plan to have an alumni reunion between August 1-12.

Job-Shadowing
Being able to job-shadow Christians was perhaps the best experience I encountered throughout the internship. I was able to shadow four wonderful people and experience a day with them at their organizations. I met with Jessica who works with MATS, which is a Missionary Auto Dealership. Tyler Sadek is a financial manager for TEAYS Investments, which invest in farms around the world. Phil Edwards is an assistant pastor at SOMA church; his job is to connect the neighborhood to the church. Lastly, Jack Nikcevich is a regional director for YoungLife, who oversees all YoungLife sites in Indiana and Kentucky.
Public Relations
During the internship, I sat in on a lot of meetings and gatherings with my supervisor. I was able to share my experience in YoungLife to about 50 people. I also talk to donors who support YoungLife about how YoungLife has changed my life and how it has directed to where I am today. I also attended a gathering of urban pastors around Indianapolis, who talk about how all churches must come together to change the community.

Video Project
Tanner Halbeigh and I are in the process of creating a testimonial video to show that the investments and generous donations of our donors are changing kids’ lives every day. We shot footage of B-roll, which consisted of my childhood home, sporting events, community, and much more. This will be a collaboration with myself and Jayion’s (current YoungLife member) testimonies.

Student Relations
I went to the school lunches about 2 to 3 times a week signing kids up for camp and sharing to them about myself. I attended clubs and Bible studies weekly throughout my internship that occurred on Mondays and Fridays. I shared the experience of being a Christian and going to college in front of 30 kids. Nearly every Saturday we would have work days that kids would attend to raise their funds to go camping and I attended nearly all of them. Work days consisted of anything from building a patio to cutting grass.


Craig Brainard ’16 Life enFocus

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enFocus-1020Last summer, I chose not to do an internship. I didn’t even look for one, and frankly I didn’t care to. I was set on taking it easy, and using my free time to relax. I took a lot for granted by not getting back on my horse after sophomore year, but I was simply worn out from having two intensive internships right after my freshman year. There are a couple of things I can look back on now, though, and say I have learned since the beginning of last summer that have helped put internships into focus for me. Hopefully, I can help provide some insights to people who are wary of putting themselves out there, or are hesitant to take on an internship.
Let me start with this summer. I had a great time in South Bend working at enFocus. The company name stands for “entrepreneurial focus”, but I love the play on words, and that in some sense my experience provided me with my clarity and focus going into my senior year at Wabash, especially surrounding my desire to become an entrepreneur after graduation.
EnFocus is a nonprofit consulting company that was founded, in part, to help reverse “Brain Drain” in Indiana. If you have never heard of this, you have now, and it is a serious problem for Indiana, long-term. Brain Drain is used to describe the alarming statistic that Indiana is 14th in producing talented individuals out of college programs, but we are 48th in the nation in retaining that talent after graduation. The foremost reason for this trend is that most people who have lived in Indiana their whole life, or those who may just be here for school, see far more benefit in getting out than staying in. Coming from someone who has lived in Indiana his whole life, I can confirm that there has always appeared to be more opportunity beyond the Indiana border than inside of it, but the passion and excitement I saw in South Bend is just one example of how this summer has provided me clarity.
EnFocus is doing a great deal to provide meaningful opportunities to talented students, to show the potential of South Bend, and Indiana, for the future. One thing they did for their interns, not just those working directly at enFocus, but also those that they helped align with internships for the summer, is provide a professional development series. The series consisted of one-hour talks every Wednesday afternoon on subjects spanning from project management to social entrepreneurship, and we even had a chance the last week to hear from Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend and have a discussion with him. One of the things he highlighted about South Bend is its connectivity compared to the cost of living. For an aspiring entrepreneur, the realization of being so close to Chicago and being a central hub for connectivity through fiber lines, all with the ability to stretch start up dollars four times as far due to the lower cost of living, makes South Bend ideal for a budding tech company. Indiana, in general, is becoming known as a place where innovative people are creating opportunities through connectivity, and I was thankful to be a part of that is happening surrounding enFocus, thanks to Wabash College and Eli Lilly for making the opportunity available to me. One of the most rewarding parts of my experience was working on a project that will provide even more meaningful internship opportunities to Indiana students in the future, as a service.
In closing, I am not sure where I will be after graduation, but Indiana is looking more enticing after this summer. To anyone who is looking for an internship next year, take a look at enFocus if you are interested in entrepreneurship or consulting with a focus on social change. EnFocus is unique in that it offers employees 30% of their time to work on their entrepreneurial ideas. This goes for interns as well. And anyone who is not sure about internships or putting themselves out there, you won’t know until you try. Internships are one of the best ways to learn about yourself and what you might be interested in doing after school. That value should never be taken for granted, especially when companies and organizations like Eli Lilly, Wabash College, and enFocus are doing so much to provide that value to you. When it comes down to it, internships are sometimes rewarding just to put life that much more in focus. Thank you to everyone who made this summer possible and such a rewarding experience, once again, Eli Lilly and Wabash College, but also all of the great people at enFocus and in South Bend.


Goddard ’15 SBIF Provides Non-Profit Experience

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Seton Goddard ’15 – Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote about the American justice system, pointing out that, “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” Justice Brandeis was a Louisvillian and a Kentuckian whose zeal for the law, fairness, and justice for all was unmistakable. His spirit and his approach to justice lives on every day at the Legal Aid Society in downtown Louisville, where I’ve been working for the last eight weeks.

Seton Goddard SBIF 2014 Legal Aid Society 2

Left to Right: Dr. John Fischer (Prof. Emeritus), Jeffrey Been ’81, Seton Goddard ’15, and Nick Maraman ’10

Legal Aid provides free civil legal services for people in Jefferson County, Kentucky (Louisville) and thirteen surrounding counties in Kentucky. This means that Legal Aid doesn’t handle any criminal cases, and they see none of the glamorous and stunning Law and Order cases. Instead, Legal Aid’s attorneys and staff work on behalf of families and individuals who have been victims of abuse, are suffering post-war effects (veterans), live in dangerous housing conditions, or who struggle with a wide range of other issues. Without Legal Aid, none of the 4,000 clients they work with annually would have access to attorneys or legal assistance in a system that is nearly impossible to navigate. Indeed, Legal Aid’s work is hugely important, and its effects are profound and widespread. As someone who believes that building strong communities starts with filling in the cracks that many of us have helped create, I was thankful to be a part of an organization that works every day to fill in those cracks and give assistance to the most economically disadvantaged among us.

Seton Goddard '15 with fellow Legal Aid Society interns. Goddard is the only undergraduate student to intern with LAS, and works alongside students from University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

Seton Goddard ’15 with fellow Legal Aid Society interns. Goddard is the only undergraduate student to intern with LAS, and works alongside students from University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

While I am neither a lawyer nor a law student, I have been able to have a hand in these efforts, working with Legal Aid’s Development Director, Julia Leist. Through my work with Julia and also Jeff Been ’81, the Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society, this internship has given me the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of fund raising, development, and non-profit management. From grant writing, to donor relations, to administrative work, I had the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects this summer, all related to funding the Legal Aid Society. Because Legal Aid is a non-profit and clients do not pay for their services my supervisor (Julia) is responsible for securing funding to pay the salaries of attorneys, cover administrative costs, and supplement the funding that comes from state and federal agencies. Without Julia’s work, Legal Aid’s resources would be even more limited, and when they must turn away many of the clients who apply for assistance, Legal Aid can use as much funding as they can track down. Most of this is secured through grants, and some of it also comes from private donations in the Louisville and greater Kentuckiana communities. My internship allowed me to write some of these grants, assist with the writing of others, and work with the private donors in Louisville – opportunities I certainly would not have gotten without this summer experience.

Even though I don’t know that I’ll go into the legal profession after I finish at Wabash in May 2015, the work that Legal Aid does has made one thing even clearer to me: there are countless issues that lead people into poverty, and even more issues that keep people in poverty. That being said, while I could have an impact through America’s justice system, I think it is also important to address the issues that land people in poverty, and I hope to pursue opportunities in those areas once I graduate. Thanks to Jeff Been ’81, Julia Leist, and the Small Business Internship Fund for this great opportunity to put the skills I have gained at Wabash into practice for the sake of helping those who, in many ways, society has forgotten.