boxes boxes and more boxes

Okay so for the last two weeks or more I have seen nothing but boxes, bubble wrap, packing tape, any type of permanent marker I could get my hands on. (not to mention the trash bags full of unusable envelopes). This is the grin and bear it work Sarah was talking about. It is such a shame that I can not really get waist deep into this internship until May. I am learning many office skills that will be very useful later when I go out into the "real world" where I will probably be starting out on the bottom just like everyone else. I now know how to use a copier, excel, microsoft outlook, and the postage machine in an office setting. I know it sounds minor but I never knew how to do any of it before I started my internship and now I am a wiz. The biggest thing I am learning is organization and backing up files along with making extra copies of important papers. Gilda's club used to be located in Atlantic City in a beautiful clubhouse that was donated to them but was situated in between a ghetto and a newly/residential area that was slowly being developed. So no members wanted to come they were loosing money like crazy and if Stockton hadn't stepped in they would have been closed down. Sarah "lived the budget" as she says. Nothing else was important but the budget. Not peoples tires getting slashed, the club house being broken into, people leaving the hose running outside to rack up huge water bills, car windows being broken, all of these things she could overlook even when her employees were laying the truth right out in front of her and saying they needed to do something about this problem because they were not getting any members who wanted to come there. Not only because of the violence but also because most of the population did not reside in Atlantic City but in surrounding areas so it was not convienient. Sarah did not take the rose colored glasses off until they were ripped from her face when somone got murdered on the corner of the street where the clubhouse was situated. that is when she realized the lives of the people she worked with were her responsibility and hers as well. So therefore "to hell with the budget" its either we run out of money in Linwood where we are safe or in Atlantic city in 2 weeks where you never know what could happen. This story along with others I have heard really opened my eyes to the problems a non profit faces and to what they must put up with and how far the limits can be pushed or the lines blurred. This internship is more than just learning about how a non profit works and stays a float. What I am learning are life lessons from women who have been through a lot.