What is LINK?
LINK is a program at AHS which allows Juniors to do a three week long internship at a business they are interested in. The juniors choose their internships and are excused for school for the three weeks, the requirements being 90-120 hours of total work time and a completed project that hopefully benefits the business in some way. I interned at Turtle Lake Refuge community garden and cafe here in Durango. Turtle Lake’s mission is to integrate wild and organic foods into our lives. They grow, harvest and distribute healthy foods to the community of Durango and educate the public about the benefits of eating wild, local food. My mentor, Katrina Blair, found Turtle Lake with her mother and has been running it for over two decades.
Their website: http://www.turtlelakerefuge.org/
Their website: http://www.turtlelakerefuge.org/
Anticipation and Preparation
Finding an internship was a long process for me. I had gone into junior year very set on spending my link shadowing a park ranger up in Utah’s Canyonlands. Last spring I spent a lot of my time in the Canyonlands and was considering working there as a career option. I had cold feet about calling the Canyonlands that lasted until January, except when I finally grew enough courage to the government had shut down so there was no reaching the park whatsoever. When the shutdown ended I realized that I would prefer to stay in town for the three weeks and while I do love the park I grew less and less interested in the idea as the year progressed. It was time for me to choose a new internship.
My next step was based off an old but recently sparked passion, plants. All my life I’ve been surrounded by plants, my mom has always gardened in the warm seasons and I’ve been growing my own plants for a few years now. When I was a freshman and LINK was just a distant concept, I remember going into Native Roots here in Durango and talking to the owner after buying some house plants. I brought up that I would love to intern there during my Junior year, and the owner who was a long term but not a close friend of my family said that I was welcomed to. When the canyonlands were no longer the plan, Native roots became the plan. About mid-March, I called Native Roots and gave an employee my contact information for the owner because he was out at the time. I waited about a week and, after not hearing from them, went inside to talk to the owner in person. He said yes and I filled out my LINK paperwork.
A few weeks passed, I was pretty set but very nervous. I was unsure of the work I would be doing there and just had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t going to be at all what I was hoping for. About a week passed after spring break when we went on a field trip to the community garden up at Turtle Lake Refuge for our food ethic project. I remember standing in the greenhouse that was simply thriving with healthy plants and thinking to myself “man I really wish I did my internship here”. A few more days passed and we had a class meeting with Janae, our LINK coordinator. I realized that I had not gotten a confirmation email, and Janae explained that my mentor had refused to do the background check for the paperwork. She was going to take the steps so I’d be allowed to intern there without the background check, but I told her it wasn’t necessary because I wanted to change internships anyways.
The next day we sat down together and wrote an email to Native Roots explaining to them why I would no longer be interning with them in April. We reached out to Katrina asking if she would be willing to take me, and with about a week away from LINK I had finally gotten it confirmed. Going into LINK all I really was hoping to get out of it was to determine whether or not I wanted to work with plants for the rest of my life. However, what I wanted to give to the business was complete compliance, I was determined to say yes to whatever tasks they gave me there because, though I knew the work may be laborious at times, I knew that if I wanted to experience everything I possibly could through them. On top of that, I wanted to be a reliable intern that showed she wanted to be there, and that I had the same excited attitude about the work they do that they exhibited. The mark I really wanted to leave was a community of youth that cares about the ecosystem of the world does exist and that their work will be left in good hands. I wanted to show them that there is hope that their work will be continued through today’s teenagers.
My next step was based off an old but recently sparked passion, plants. All my life I’ve been surrounded by plants, my mom has always gardened in the warm seasons and I’ve been growing my own plants for a few years now. When I was a freshman and LINK was just a distant concept, I remember going into Native Roots here in Durango and talking to the owner after buying some house plants. I brought up that I would love to intern there during my Junior year, and the owner who was a long term but not a close friend of my family said that I was welcomed to. When the canyonlands were no longer the plan, Native roots became the plan. About mid-March, I called Native Roots and gave an employee my contact information for the owner because he was out at the time. I waited about a week and, after not hearing from them, went inside to talk to the owner in person. He said yes and I filled out my LINK paperwork.
A few weeks passed, I was pretty set but very nervous. I was unsure of the work I would be doing there and just had a horrible feeling that it wasn’t going to be at all what I was hoping for. About a week passed after spring break when we went on a field trip to the community garden up at Turtle Lake Refuge for our food ethic project. I remember standing in the greenhouse that was simply thriving with healthy plants and thinking to myself “man I really wish I did my internship here”. A few more days passed and we had a class meeting with Janae, our LINK coordinator. I realized that I had not gotten a confirmation email, and Janae explained that my mentor had refused to do the background check for the paperwork. She was going to take the steps so I’d be allowed to intern there without the background check, but I told her it wasn’t necessary because I wanted to change internships anyways.
The next day we sat down together and wrote an email to Native Roots explaining to them why I would no longer be interning with them in April. We reached out to Katrina asking if she would be willing to take me, and with about a week away from LINK I had finally gotten it confirmed. Going into LINK all I really was hoping to get out of it was to determine whether or not I wanted to work with plants for the rest of my life. However, what I wanted to give to the business was complete compliance, I was determined to say yes to whatever tasks they gave me there because, though I knew the work may be laborious at times, I knew that if I wanted to experience everything I possibly could through them. On top of that, I wanted to be a reliable intern that showed she wanted to be there, and that I had the same excited attitude about the work they do that they exhibited. The mark I really wanted to leave was a community of youth that cares about the ecosystem of the world does exist and that their work will be left in good hands. I wanted to show them that there is hope that their work will be continued through today’s teenagers.
LINK Project
Going into LINK, I was really unsure of what my project would look like, but I wanted to make a cold frame to grow food in. A cold frame is a tall frame made of wood with a removable glass top which is designed to work as a mini greenhouse, keeping the growth inside warmer than it would be on its own. I told this to my mentor, who’s plan for me from the beginning was to have me restore a cold frame that had been sitting in the patio of the cafe. There were about three frames, one with comfrey and other edible plants and one with just lemon balm in it. These two I didn’t touch, but the third was an overgrowth of comfrey, tree sprouts, and weeds. I dug out the comfrey which we gave to a group of students whom Katrina was teaching at the time. I replanted the tree sprouts for Katrina to bring to the community garden. Then, I took a growing frame (a 2x2 squatty box that they start different seeds in before transplanting them) with lettuce and transplanted them into the restored frame. When I ran out of space in the frame I moved to a little patch of dirt next to the frame with lemon balm and cleaned it out of debris and other plants. Then I covered the topsoil with compost and finished transplanting the lettuce. This benefitted the Refuge because it's very convenient for them to have lettuce growing at their in-town location if they ever run out during lunches they wouldn’t have to make a trip to the farm.
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