This week I saw my first flowers popping out of the dirt. It still looks like winter outside, but you can tell that change is imminent. There will be no better place to be in a few weeks than a botanic garden. Flowers will be blooming, birds will be chirping, and spring will be in the air. I’ll probably visit the Chicago Botanic Garden (my wife and I like it there because it’s where we got married), but those in the New York City area might want to check out the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. It’s a non-profit and “an urban botanic garden that connects people to the world of plants, fostering delight and curiosity while inspiring an appreciation and sense of stewardship of the environment.”
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I swear that every kid who grows up in Connecticut goes on a field trip to Old Sturbridge Village at some point. For me it wasn’t until 10th grade (and we were on our way back from a longer trip to Boston and Plimoth Plantation), but I think most kids go earlier in their lives. If you weren’t lucky enough to grow up within a couple hour bus ride of Old Sturbridge Village (which is based in Sturbridge, MA), you should know that it’s the “largest outdoor history museum in the Northeast” and it “depicts a rural New England town of the 1830s.” It’s the perfect place for immature children to try to get the staff to fall out of character.
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Last year I got married at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I’ve never been much of a plant person, but it was truly a perfect setting. I’m just amazed that they can grow such a diverse array of beautiful plants in this climate–especially with the winter we’re having this year. If I was opening such a garden, I’d want to do so in a more moderate climate like San Francisco’s. John McLaren was the landscape gardener who was Golden Gate Park’s superintendent for 56 years. He picked a place for a future botanical garden that had “a variety of soil and exposure, sloping, dry and sunny hillsides, sheltered spots and rich, low or marshy land.” The San Francisco Botanical Garden finally got the necessary funding in 1926, and in 1954 the Strybing Arboretum Society was founded to support the garden and its programs. Today the organization is known as the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, and it supports “55 acres of both landscaped gardens and open spaces, showcasing over 8,000 different kinds of plants from around the world.”
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retail
We moved to a tree lined street recently, and I love it. I can walk out my door on a 90 degree day, and it still doesn’t feel oppressively hot. My car is nice and cool when I get in (though it tends to get covered in bird poop), and if it rains, it has to rain pretty hard to actually get me wet. Soon the leaves will fall off and it will get colder, and then the sun will shine through the branches and keep things a little warmer. Trees make living in a city way better. That’s the premise behind Canopy, a Palo Alto, CA based “environmental nonprofit that engages the community in the growth and care of our urban forest.” While they only focus on Palo Alto and it surrounding communities, they’re making a big difference through the power of trees.
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I have no idea how much of the Thanksgiving story that I learned in elementary school is factual. I assumed that the whole thing about Squanto teaching the Pilgrims to fertilize corn with fish was a bunch of bunk, but Wikipedia says that it’s pretty much true. We’ve come a long way from the kind of subsistence agriculture that got our country started. Farming these days is far more science than art. Crop Quest is a perfect example. They’re a Dodge City, KS based “innovation-driven leader in crop consulting and agricultural production management and solutions with a clear focus on [their] customers’ production goals and budgets.” In a weird way, they’re kind of like the modern day Squanto.
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Colorado,
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Happy Mother’s Day! While the best gift that you could possibly give your mother is for you to get a job–flowers, brunch, or a card will have to do for now (not many people get hired over the weekend). I think flowers make a pretty awesome gift, but it sucks that they are eventually going to die. Why not give your mom a flower experience instead? Take her somewhere like the Queens Botanical Garden, which is a Flushing, NY based “urban oasis where people, plants and cultures are celebrated through inspiring gardens, innovative educational programs and demonstrations of environmental stewardship.” Could there be a better place to take your mother?
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In my fiancée’s mind there is no better dessert than fresh berries and whipped cream. I’d probably add a piece of chocolate cake to that, but the biggest variable in the equation is almost always the berries. Good berries, whether they’re strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or snozberries, taste better than candy, while bad berries often taste like dirt. Since I share Jerry Seinfeld’s feeling that fruit is a gamble, I’m not particularly brand conscious, but checking my refrigerator tells me that my most recently purchased strawberries are from Driscoll’s. They’re a Watsonville, CA based berry purveyor that has been family owned and operated for more than 100 years.
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organic,
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I’m in the doghouse. I’m the guy who forgot Valentine’s Day. Luckily, it’s not with my fiancée–I took good care of her yesterday. It’s with you. I didn’t give you a Valentine’s Day post after in past years telling you about companies like eHarmony, Tiffany & Co., OpenTable, ProFlowers, Necco, Vosges, and even the American Heart Association. Flowers are the tried and true way of getting out of the doghouse, but a beautiful bouquet isn’t going to do it when that’s the status quo for Valentine’s Day. How about a flower arrangement every week? That might do it, and that’s exactly what New York, NY based H.BLOOM offers. They are a “flower service.” If you don’t know what that is, you can learn more here. Essentially it’s a subscription to flowers. Subscription based business models are all the rage these days, so it’s no surprise that someone is applying it to the floral industry.
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I don’t think I realized how much I enjoyed the gardens my parents had in our backyard until I moved to a city and lived in a high-rise. As cool as it is to be 30 stories up and see tiny people going about their business below, I’d much rather be able to open my back door and see blooms, butterflies, bees, and birds. I’ll bet that the people at the non-profit American Horticultural Society would agree with me. The AHS “is one of the oldest national gardening organizations in the country,” and since their founding in 1922 they’ve grown to more than 20,000 members. The AHS is headquartered in Alexandria, VA at a placed called River Farm, which was owned by George Washington. It includes 25 acres of landscaped lawns and gardens, so I’m sure it’s stunning.
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Virginia,
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I used to wake up every day, look out the window, and see the Chicago skyline. In my new place, I wake up and see a whole bunch of trees. Though I know I’ll miss being able to watch the city from a few hundred feet up, it’s a nice change. Who doesn’t love trees? Well, the people at the Sacramento Tree Foundation probably love trees even more than the average person. The Sacramento Tree Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Sacramento, CA that is “working to grow healthy, livable communities in the Sacramento region by empowering people to plant, protect, and learn about trees.” They have a goal of planting 5 million trees in the area by 2025. Though they have a long way to go, they’ve already gotten off to a great start.
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public policy
I’m in St. Louis for the weekend, mostly to watch my girlfriend’s little sister’s volleyball tournament, but I’m looking for other cool things to do since it’s my first time here. Yesterday I got to visit the Saint Louis Zoo, which is fantastic. (And I promise I didn’t act like this kid.) I got to see monkeys, giraffes, zebras, lions, penguins, gorillas, elephants, somali wild asses, and a whole range of other animals that I’d never even heard of before. I even got to see the mountain nyala that makes an appearance in the zoo’s logo. I was really impressed with the Saint Louis Zoo—it has a wonderful layout and an amazing collection of animals. The best part, though, was that we got to see feeding time for the grizzly bears. It may sound barbaric, but it was nothing of the sort. We watched as two of the laziest bears that I’ve ever seen would catch oranges in their mouths and then suck out the meat while leaving behind the rind. What made the experience even better was that it was free. Saint Louis Zoo is a “free zoo,” so all you have to pay for is parking.
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It used to be that if you wanted to build something, the hard part would be actually building it. These days the biggest hold up in construction and development is often environmental compliance. There are a multitude of regulations that limit what you can build, where you can build it, and how you can build it. The rules are often complex and they can vary greatly between jurisdictions. Sapphos Environmental is a Pasadena, CA based company that helps its clients resolve “planning, resource management, and environmental compliance issues through the development of pragmatic solutions and exemplary client service.” In other words they offer a range of services that ensure that development projects are done in an environmentally sensitive and compliant way.
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Ten days ago we took a look at Rodale Institute, a non-profit that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” We talked about how industrial farming has led to amazing boosts in productivity, but it’s also created a lot of problems. Marrone Bio Innovations is a Davis, CA based company that is taking a natural approach to one specific area of agriculture: pest control. They’re aiming to be “the world leader in natural product innovation” by making “natural, effective, safe, environmentally friendly products the mainstream future of pest management.” Usually you don’t hear organic and pesticide in the same sentence, but Marrone Bio Innovations’ business is predicated on bringing the two together.
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Last week I got an e-mail from a One Day, One Job reader who is just wrapping up a seasonal position and looking for her next gig. In doing so, she realized that other readers might be interested in her current position, so she wrote me to tell me about it. When I saw the name Rodale Institute in her e-mail, I swore to myself that I had already featured the organization, but it was actually a publishing company named Rodale that was started by the same person as the Institute and used to be financially linked to it as well. The Rodale Institute is a Kutztown, PA based non-profit organization that is “dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach.” They’ve been at it since 1947, and they’re going to keep “researching the best practices of organic agriculture and sharing [their] findings with farmers and scientists throughout the world” because they believe that eating organic is the healthiest option for people and for the Earth.
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I love the mountains. They are some of the most untamed and untouched pieces of land left on the face of the Earth, and I’ve come to appreciate them more and more as I’ve lived in Chicago where you can see flat, developed land to the horizon. People who live in mountain communities are extremely reliant on the ecosystems that exist above them, yet these ecosystems are some of the most sensitive known to man. The Mountain Institute is a non-profit organization that works to “develop policies, investments, and participatory approaches to enable mountain people, and the billions affected downstream, to understand, harness, and manage the interrelated and complex issues confronting the world’s mountains in the 21st century.” Their Executive Office is located in Washington, DC, while their Corporate Business Office is in Morgantown, WV. Additionally, they have program offices across Asia, North America, and South America.
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I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received e-mails from readers who say something like, “I’ve always loved (company name), but I never considered the fact that I could intern for them until I read your post about them.” The reason for this is simple: most students don’t have the right mindset or approach. If you’re looking for an internship, everything that you do should relate back to the search. If you find something interesting—a product, company, idea, or anything else—you need to make a note of it and revisit it when you’re at your computer. For example, today I came across an article on Cool Hunting about Guerrilla Seed Bombs. They’re basically little nuggets that you can toss, chuck, or drop in dirt to plant seeds and improve green spaces. It’s part of the “guerrilla gardening” movement, and I think it’s a really neat idea—Johnny Appleseed for the new millennium. One of the companies behind these seed bombs is Los Angeles, CA based Commonstudio. They appear to be a two person design firm, and they’ve developed their seed grenades to be dispensed in old gum ball machines and sold under the name Green Aid (get it… grenade).
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You’ve probably heard the term “heirloom,” in reference to fruits or vegetables. For the longest time I had no idea what it meant, but eventually I asked someone and the gist of the definition is “any garden plant that has a history of being passed down within a family, just like pieces of heirloom jewelry or furniture.” More often than not the plants are passed down in the form of seeds. Heirloom breeds of plants are important not only for sentimental reasons, but also because they provide genetic diversity. By maintaining old breeds of plants with their unique resistance to disease and pests, we are able to ensure the security of our food supply. Seed Savers Exchange is a Decorah, IA based non-profit that “saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations.”
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My Dad is an architect, and he often likes to send me suggestions on which companies I should feature next. Sometimes he finds some pretty cool stuff, and a month or so ago he sent me a link to the Winter 2009 online issue of HQ Magazine, which features an article called “Top 20 Places to Work.” Usually such lists focus on a range of reasons for a place’s being great to work at, but HQ is an architectural publication, so this list is all about office space (not the movie). The section of the article on Epic Systems says: “Epic’s campus fits into idyllic pastures and farmland, providing serene, relaxing views from within. Outside are hiking trails, playing fields, a treehouse. Meeting rooms have working fireplaces to further the sense of calmness.” It sounds amazing. Epic systems is a Wisconsin based, privately held, employee owned healthcare software provider.
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healthcare,
information technology,
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Wisconsin
Although I got to work at a private fishing club during one summer in college and spent two summers interning at Orvis, I still wish that I could have done something like interning with Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks. Being a lover of the outdoors, I can’t imagine many things better than spending a summer in Big Sky Country. In case you’re not familiar with what Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks is, they’re Montana’s state agency charged with managing conservation of many of the state’s natural resources. Obviously, much of what they do is centered around managing fishing and hunting regulations, but they also have a huge responsibility of managing all of state parks (and there’s a whole lot to manage in a state like Montana).
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zoology
Two Sundays ago we wrote about internships with Smokey House Center, a farming cooperative and outdoor classroom in rural Vermont. Today we’re going to take a look at another agriculturally focused non-profit, but today’s organization is located in the heart of Oakland. That’s right, City Slicker Farms is all about urban farming. Their mission is to “increase food self-sufficiency in West Oakland by creating organic, sustainable, high-yield urban farms and back-yard gardens.” City Slicker Farms is all about enabling people to directly improve their own lives through agriculture. Not only does urban farming provide delicious, nutritious food at a low cost, but it also makes the urban landscape more livable.
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You know that you’ve always wanted to live on a farm in rural Vermont. Here’s your chance. Smokey House Center is an outdoor classroom for middle and high school students where they can do “farming, forestry, and ecological research — learning in the process, science, math, ecology, communications, reading, writing, problem-solving, critical thinking, responsibility and teamwork.” Smokey House offers two applied learning programs – one for disadvantaged high school students and the other for mainstream middle and high school students. Beyond being a non-profit educational organization, Smokey House Center is also a real life working farm in Danby, Vermont.
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This is our last Summer internship post for a while. We’ll be taking a couple weeks off to rejuvenate and find great Fall internship opportunities. We will publish a post tomorrow that will provide resources for a last minute internships search, so if you’re still hunting, we won’t completely abandon you. For our last Summer internship posting, we’ve chosen a non-profit organization founded by Bette Midler, yes, she of Hocus Pocus fame. We wanted to take the opportunity to make some jokes about a celebrity do-gooder, but we’re actually going to restrain ourselves because we’re really impressed by the New York Restoration Project and the work it does.
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This isn’t the first time we’ve featured internships at a botanical garden, but we thought it was time to reach out to those plant science and botany majors again. It must have crossed our mind when we realized that spring is in full force at One Day, One Job Headquarters. Everything has bloomed, and not only is it beautiful here, but it also smells great. Whenever we open a door or window we get a fragrant burst of springtime. Since we hear from a lot of people that we focus too much on internships in New York and California (hey, that’s where a lot of them are), the addition of the Chicago Botanic Garden to our list of companies and organizations that hire interns should be welcome.
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The other kids begged their parents to take them to the zoo. Animals were exciting to them. Animals move and eat. They make weird sounds. They smell funny. Plants have none of those appeal factors. Plants don’t move, they grow. They absorb their nutrients. They’re soundless. And they smell good (most of them anyways). To most kids that spells B-O-R-I-N-G, but not to you. You realize that the zoo is an 86-minute comedy movie, while a botanical garden is 142 minutes of Academy Award winning cinematic genius. So, if you were the kid that ignored the cheap thrills of the zoo for the higher art of the botanical garden, then today’s internships will bud your interest.
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