Jayme Jaeger

Major: Event Management
Company/Organization: Iowa Arboretum
Company/Organization website: http://www.iowaarboretum.org
Destination: Madrid, IA
Timeframe: Summer
Advisor/Coordinator Email: rmcclain@iastate.edu

Responsibilities

My responsibilities for this internship is to completely plan Arbfeast. Arbfeast is the fall garden held annually in order to raise money for the internship program. Planning this garden party has many different aspects such as reaching out to donors for donations and sponsors, working with the volunteers to make up a committee for Arbfeast and working with other outside sources such as arranging the music and the catering.

Accomplishments

Up to now, my biggest accomplishment of this internship is being able to successfully reach out to music and caterers and also building a committee for Arbfeast by reaching out to all of the volunteers. I hosted a meeting of the committee and it was extremely productive because we worked through a lot of small things that the volunteers have worked on in the past for this event.

Learning experience

When first learning about an event, know everything that goes into it. For example, with Arbfeast, I have had to reach out to donors and it takes a long time for them to respond. I am lucky I knew this and that my supervisors told me this because if they wouldn't have, who knows how many donations I would have gotten in time and how stressed I would feel later on from the lack of responses.

What advice would you give?

Get an idea of how much needs to be put into each event. Also, appropriately space out your work. I did a lot of my work in the beginning feeling kind of stressed about all of it. However, now it is a waiting game because I am waiting to hear back from donors and since I have already finished a lot of the other things that go into this event, I sometimes feel myself getting bored.

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