Internship Description

During my internship at People's Lobby, I learned many different things and completed many different types of tasks. Although most of it was administrative work, I did have the chance to create some of my own work.

Among the things I learned was the program ACT, Contact Manager on the computer. It is basically a program that complies every person that Dwayne might need contact information about. He has about 70, 000 contacts. I had to enter, delete, change, organize, and manipulate details on contacts or sometimes whole contacts. I had to learn how to look up different contacts based on organization or county or city or state. I had to create Mail Merges, which allowed me so send mass e-mails derived from documents saved on the computer.

I also learned how to scan and edit photos, use basic Excel skills, and access results from petitions Dwayne Hunn, my supervisor, is running.

The most exciting thing that I had the chance to do was to write e-mails to politicians and radio talk show hosts. It was so cool to be able to write a professional message that had meaning, and have an organization like People's Lobby that would back it. It made me feel very powerful and important. I have even gotten a reply from a well-known radio host, which made me feel really cool.

The most frustrating thing about working at People's Lobby was the lack of interest by everyday people. It is so hard to get people to care about issues even if they directly apply to them. People just don't really have the time to get involved or get educated. It is my hope that in the future, people have more opportunities to get involved and make a change.