Mowing Internship Summer 2009

I am convinced that my real internship this summer is mowing lawns. I mowed 5 out the past 7 days. Monday and Tuesday after working at HOPE during the day, I mowed at night. Wednesday night I had the evening off. Then all day Thursday and Friday I was out mowing a Keystone community. Today, is my normal mowing day and I mowed three houses throughout the county. I am pretty stoked that I have a 7 day break until I start mowing again next weekend. Even though I am sick of mowing, it has been a pretty cool experience. After working Monday through Thursday in the office, I am ready to be doing something outside. After I mow all day on the weekend, I am ready to get back into the office on Monday morning. I've been driving a couple different work trucks and learned how to back a trailer. When I decided to come out to Pennsylvania, I accepted the fact that I wouldn't have a car out here. It has been a nice surprise to have the work trucks to drive.


Interning at HOPE has been really cool because there are so many like minded people working towards the same goal. HOPE International is a microfinance organization that provides small loans to people in developing countries around the world. HOPE strives to go to the hard places that other organizations have often stayed away from. The loans are given to people as a hand up and not a hand out. That meaning that there is interest on the loan and it isn't a gift. Many times the only option for a loan in these countries is from a loan shark who charges exorbidant amounts of interest. HOPE's micro loans give people an opportunity to expand their small business and pull their family away from the cliffes of poverty. They may be able to eat 2 meals a day instead of just one, add more nutritious food to the family's diet, send the kids to school, pay for needed medical care, etc...

How does my work in Pennsylvania help those overseas in the countries HOPE works in? Here is a breakdown of what I do at HOPE... I work for HOPE's founder Jeff Rutt. He founded HOPE in the late 1990s after his church had been sending containers of supplies to Ukraine and he realized this really wasn't helping. The people in Ukraine were becoming dependant on these containers sent from the US. Jeff found that it was important to let people pull themselves out of poverty. He realized that people already had the survival skills, they really just needed capital and so he began giving out loans through HOPE International. Before Jeff founded HOPE, he started Keystone Custom Homes (I think its pretty obvious that they build custom homes). He later then started another nonprofit that stems from HOPE called Homes for Hope. Homes for Hope finds builders, contractors, and tradesmen that all come together to build a home. Once the home is sold, the profit that the builder usually pockets is given to HOPE International. I split my time between those three organizations: HOPE International, Keystone Custom Homes, and Homes for Hope. My typical days have a couple meetings and maybe a bible study. The days fly by because there is so much going on between these three organizations. I enjoy being really busy with many different projects and so I think this is a great internship for me. Many projects with HOPE and Homes for Hope involve helping Jeff raise money. Raising money from donors can take many different forms. I may be helping find sponsors for the HOPE golf tournament, go out to lunch with Jeff and a potential donor, or work on ways to save HOPE money. I am basically a liaison between Jeff and HOPE, making sure that all of his projects are completed. I have only been here 3 weeks (next week will be the start of the 4th) and work has already gotten intensely busy but I am loving the fast paced environment and having some involvement in HOPE's great cause.

If I was asked a couple years ago what I would be doing after graduation, I don't think I could have predicted this. It has been an interesting experience graduating from college, volunteering my time at a Christian non-profit, and mowing lawns on the side to make a little money. This scenario would have sounded absurd to me three years ago. In my last few years in college, I realized how much I loved learning and I think that is why I am having a blast thus far this summer. There are things from my last internship in commercial real estate that really help me in this internship, but other projects I have are completely random and force me to teach myself new concepts. I had never mowed lawns growing up (I know that is embarrassing) but have loved having the opportunity to learn how to operate the commercial mowers and back the trailer. My Toyota Tacoma work truck is a manual transmission and that has been great being able to drive stick again for the first time really since high school.

The first 3 or 4 weeks of summer out here have been pretty eventful. I hope that each week will bring something new to learn or some exciting adventure. This summer has already been a growing experience both spirtually and personally.