PT Online Co-editor Amelia Levin-Sheffield sat down with Charlotte Miller ’17 to discuss her internship at the Miwok Center Stables in Mill Valley.
Amelia Levin-Sheffield: Can you explain what your internship is?
Charlotte Miller: I’m serving as a junior member on the board for the Miwok Stables Center and I’m the secretary for the board.
AL-S: What is the Miwok Stables Center?
CM: It raises funds for an outreach program; we organize hospital groups or cancer recovery patients or kids from under privileged schools and we organize for them to come and learn how to ride our horses. That program takes place in the middle of the day on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I can’t directly volunteer at that time of day; I work more in the background helping to organize the events.
AL-S: Can you tell me how you got the internship?
CM: I got the internship because I’ve been working with the foundation for a long time. Miwok Stables is where I’ve been riding since I was eight and it’s where I keep my horse. I know everyone there really well. I started working for them last fall and then the owner asked me to join the board as a junior member; when I got elected to the board the board members voted me as secretary.
AL-S: What does being secretary entail?
CM: Being secretary means I have to go to all the meetings and take notes on everything that is said. I have to release an email in two forms; I take the short hand notes and then put them into a paragraph description about what happened; it’s usually pretty long. I also have to turn in short hand notes to officially document everything that happens in the meetings.
AL-S: What does a typical meeting look like?
CM: The Miwok Stables Center organizes all of the fundraisers and the events. They’re the behind–the-scenes action for the barn; in the meetings we will plan events, plan improvements. The barn is in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area; it’s in Tennessee Valley, so we also have to discuss about what’s going on with the National Park service and how that affects us.
AL-S: How do you feel like this internship will play out in the future?
CM: I will definitely be serving on the board until I go to college and I think that as time progresses my involvement is definitely going to amp up because a lot of directors are probably going to retire in the time that I’m working there. Right now I’m doing a lot of menial help in organizing the events, but in the future I can see taking on more responsibility for what the board does.
AL-S: Can you relate this to the Lick PPP classes?
CM: Because Miwok Stables is a non-profit, it falls into the requirement of a PPP class, but it’s not the same time commitment as the Lick PPP; the classes are an hour and 15 minutes every other day. In order to make it satisfy the requirements I work for both the non-profit and for profit sides of the organization. I’m taking my earnings from the for-profit and donating them to the non-profit.
AL-S: What is your goal for the internship?
CM: I’ve been doing a lot to raise money for the foundation. I just put on a fall fundraiser and we’re putting on another one in the spring. Overall it’s just a good learning experience, learning how to work with a lot of adults and learning to work at a more mature level. It’s very satisfying to be able to give back to a community that has given me so much.
