My Health and Human Performance Internship: Yard Sale Prep

By Jessica Turner '17

During my 5th week of my HHP internship at the Franklin County Perinatal Education Center I have worked most of my time on preparation for the spring yard sale. The FCPEC is a non-profit organization so they have to fundraise to get a majority of their money. The yard is one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. So I helped to sort some of the donated clothes into winter and summer clothes based on their sizes. They have a fall and spring yard sale, so they try to only have out summer clothes during the spring yard sale and winter clothes in the fall yard sale. I also have to make sure that the clothes don’t have too many stains or too worn out. If the clothes are have stains or too worn out we either throw them out or donate them to Goodwill. I also got to test out the electrical appliances that have been donated. I tested everything from irons and microwaves to bacon cookers and Christmas lights. I spent two of my days testing all of the different electronics and most of them worked.

During my 6th week, I worked more on the yard sale items. I got to measure and package curtains that were donated. At the beginning I was struggling trying to figure out the best way to measure and fold the curtains because they are so long. After about two or three tries I got it down and was on a roll. I also started organizing childbirth care packages that I had made into girl or boy and winter or summer. I had to figure out the best way to storage them. I found these giant plastic bags labeled them and put the specific package into the big bag. I’ve made so many of these care packages that mothers will be getting these after I finish my internship at FCPEC. That is a very exciting thought for me, that I will be making a small impact on this place even after my internship is up.

The FC Perinatal Education Center is partnered with Bath and Body Works and Tuesday Morning in Roanoke and they will donate items. When the stores get returns that they can’t put back on the shelves they will donate them to us. So there are some very nice and high quality things donated to them, like comforters and lamps. Amy goes and picks up carloads from both stores at least once a week.

I feel like I’m getting into a flow now, I feel comfortable going in and doing whatever Amy asks of me and she can leave me to do it. I’ve been learning how much work goes into putting on a fundraiser and keeping a non-profit running. Amy runs everything basically by herself, does paperwork, sets up classes, and does fundraisers. She has one lady that comes in twice a week to help price and sort donations for the yard sale and another lady that comes in during the mornings and helps answer phones and helps mail out postcards. Other than them, she does everything. You can really see her love for what she does, she never complains about all the work, besides paper work occasionally. She always has a smile on her face and had such a positive attitude.