Dear Steering Committee,

In March of 2019 I was a Junior at Rutland high school. I was undecided of what to do
for my senior project. I tampered with multiple opportunities and options. One of my earliest
considerations was doing an internship at Woofs and Waves at Sioux Falls and learning how to
take care of fresh and salt water fish underneath the knowledge of an employee there. However,
due to commission issues I wasn’t able to do that internship. For a brief period of time I
considered making a small film drug abuse and the effects that go with it. This idea was quickly
rejected by the senior project committee for a variety of reasons. Another momentary option was
an internship at Persona but this wasn’t an option because at the time I was seventeen and
Persona requires all employees to be at least eighteen years old. My last failed attempt was to be
a teachers assistant at SDSU but after about a month it was decided by me and the both schools
that it just wasn’t going to be the best course of action. After two months of one failed attempt
after another I spoke with the senior project committee and my mother and we decided that the
best option for me was to do a service learning project at Encore, a store in Madison. The
original plan was for me to do half of my 120 hours at Encore and the other at head start but I
made a decision to do just Encore as it seemed like a better fit for me.
June 21, 2019, my first day at Encore. I officially met my mentor Holly and began to
work at the store. The majority of my work done at Encore was in the shop not in the front of the
store. I organized and moved different kinds of donated items to the front of the store and in the
back if that was it’s place. Over time I began to move furniture and do more kinds of jobs. The
most I have done at Encore was loading and unloading bags and boxes of mainly cloths and
other items as well.
In this in learned a lot more than I originally thought I would. I learned how to interact
with employees as well as customers. This project taught me a lot of skills about interacting with
people of all different kinds personalities. I also learned about work ethic. I already had a decent
work ethic but this job really took it up a notch. It helped me understand that you need to put in
effort and once I did I actually liked the job.
None of this knowledge, experience, or wisdom would have been acquired if it wasn’t for
the senior project committee. I would like to thank Mr. Brosnahan, Mrs. Trower, Mrs. Holmberg,
and Ms Davis for helping me along the way and giving me the opportunity to have spent six
months at Encore and learn things I’ll never forget.

Sincerely,

Nakoska C. Anderson