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During my summer, I decided to stay in Walla Walla and work as a Grant Writing Intern at . At the time, I didn’t know a lot about grant writing but being involved at the Harper Joy Theatre Box Office on campus made me curious about what it would be like to work at a theater company in downtown Walla Walla. I am so happy I did. The involvement I had at the Power House opened my eyes to all the skills I gained as a rising senior English major with a History minor. At my internship I was tasked with creating narrative responses for grant applications hoping to fund the theater’s events. As a nonprofit organization, these grants are a part of how the theater can provide accessible arts events for the community and surrounding areas. 

At first this seemed like a daunting task for me until I realized that my skills I gained at Whitman prepared me for this task perfectly. As an English major writing persuasive arguments and papers are skills I have mastered over the years and that is essentially what creating narrative responses are. It is getting our mission statement (“To generate a strong, inclusive community through performing arts”) across to potential donors and sponsors. My History minor has also become very useful in crafting these responses because of the research that goes into looking for grants and seeing if the theater is a good fit for the application. This research process is not dissimilar from researching a history paper, looking at information from multiple sources to get the big picture of the subject. This internship made me think about how to use my major and minor together to create the best responses I could make. 

My major and minor created a foundation for my work as a Grant Writing intern, but I also learned a lot. Grant writing is very hands on and involves learning by doing and I am very grateful for the Power House team for teaching me how to write and research for grant applications as well as the general knowledge about grant writing as a career. This strengthened my writing skills by helping me think about the outcome of my writing. 

At this internship I was able to also volunteer at theater events and see the outcome of grants sponsored in the form of field trips bringing students in the Walla Walla community to Gesa Power House Theatre to see plays and other educational lectures and events. As well as meet and gain connections with sponsors and donors within the community. 

This internship has opened my eyes to all the skills I bring to the table now with my degree and helped me figure out how I want to use my degree moving forward to post-graduation.