Betsy Adams is currently serving as the talent acquisition intern at Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance (IFBI) in the talent management department. She is a rising senior at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana studying human resource management and business. She will graduate in May of 2019 and is anxiously looking forward to kick starting her career in human resources.
On Wednesday, June 27, I had the opportunity, with the other 24 IFBI interns, to spend my afternoon at Gleaner’s Food Bank of Indiana volunteering and serving the Indianapolis community. Our internship program provides us with a number of off-site field trips as opportunities to spend time outside of the home office to better understand the impact of the company and serve the community in a hands-on way.
It was fascinating to see our work dynamics come together in both a competitive and fun way. The healthy spirit of competition allowed us to breeze through an enormous amount of work in our short afternoon on the property. As a team, we were able to sort 12,000 pounds of food, pack 250+ boxes of food for distribution and stuff three pallets of backpacks for Teacher’s Treasures, a local charity that seeks to provide school supplies to teachers in low income schools in the Indianapolis area. We were able to have funny and memorable conversations while getting these tasks completed.
Because we all serve IFBI in a number of different capacities, it is rare that we are together as a whole intern class outside of our field trips and a lunch together onsite. I thoroughly enjoyed the chance to spend time with fellow interns while doing something incredibly important for our community.
There is a sense of community and camaraderie when volunteering on behalf of a company. I feel fortunate to work for a company that understands how important its presence is in the community. It was a very humbling experience to see all 25 of us, working hard, wearing our IFBI intern shirts and working toward something much larger than ourselves. Whether it comes in the form of learning from my engaging managers or in the form of community service, I am so looking forward to the remainder of my internship as I continue learning the practical application of servant leadership in a field that I am so passionate about.
