 Intro
by Kelly Stacken
Hello, CPED staff! This summer, we were fortunate to have the opportunity of hosting a Step Up intern in our department. The very talented intern, Noel Bode, worked in Operations and Innovation as our Communications Assistant. I enjoyed being able to work directly with Noel as she worked remotely on communications projects. Noel and I were able to tour the new office building together, as well as tour the Regulatory Services Animal Care and Control Center. Noel is interested in Zoology, so being able to see the animal shelter was a great experience for her! Noel has done a fabulous job this internship collaborating with the Step Up team, designing projects in Adobe Creative Suite products, managing some excel spreadsheets, and producing this newsletter.
Step Up is a wonderful program that allows youth to connect with people and resources, gain work experience, and build up their resume as they continue their endeavors!
Hello! My name is Noel Bode and I am a Step Up intern. I work for Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED) department. I work on the Operations and Innovation team. This is my first year working with CPED and I am very excited for this experience.
Working with CPED alongside my supervisor, Kelly Stacken, allowed me to explore the city. And somewhere we went in the city was the City’s Minneapolis Animal Care & Control Center. During the tour, I learned a lot of things I didn't know before. In the future, I plan on working in a job that has something to do with animals, so being in the Animal Care building really sparked my interests.
Some things I did at the Minneapolis Animal Care & Control Center are:
- Talked with an Animal Control Police Officer named Faith. She used to be a Step Up intern like me, so that was cool to see her in a professional job setting as a full-time employee.
- We toured the building and was able to see and pet the animals they had there.
- I learned what was done there and how they do it. There was a lot of room specifically for special and different things. There were rooms for animals unexposed to people, animals that were ready to be adopted, animals that were too wild, etc. I saw where they operate surgeries as well as tools that were used to clean up afterwards.
- I connected with our tour guide, Daniel. Hearing her personal story of how she got involved with Animal Care & Control, made me happy and motivated to do what I like most, and have hope in achieving my dream.
- We took pictures and held the cutest kittens.
 Animals at Regulatory Services Animal Care and Control Center
I got to go to the new office building itself and that was a really nice experience. I worked on a few things with my supervisor, Kelly Stacken and then we toured the building. Some things that we did were:
- Drank tea and coffee at the Be Graceful Café
- Sat at the café table and went through designs for a Welcome poster
- Went up and down in the elevators stopping to look at the ceiling art on each floor
- Took pictures of the art and other things we saw that were fun
- Looked at skyways and special rooms in the building
- Talked to people who were working in the office that day
- Checked out Kelly’s and the Operations and Innovation office space
- Took pictures of me as the model
I had a lot of fun and enjoyed seeing people work in the building, as well as construction that was done on the building. I loved the art the most and my favorite floor was the very top one (floor 10). Modeling for pictures was so much fun and it was nice to explore and do work at the same time. I can’t wait to show others the office and things around it.
 Noel Bode (me) modeling at the Public Service Building.
 Ceiling art at the Public Service Building.
Collaborating With an Urban Scholar
Someone I want to highlight is an Urban Scholar that I work with. Her name is Amy MexquititlaPerez. She worked as a Step Up intern for four years and two years as an Urban Scholar, so she is very familiar with these programs. We collaborated on projects we are assigned to. Some projects that we’ve done/helped on are:
- Weekly Youth Spotlights (see image below)
- Surveys for level 1, 2, and online learners to highlight them on our social media
- Step Up End of Celebration Video
Some things about Amy:
- Four years in Step Up Program:
- First: Café (worked in kitchen)
- Second: Non-profit Organization (informational interviews/worked with interns on projects)
- Third: Economic team department (human services, child support, went to different events)
- Fourth: Civil Rights department (talk and research about cities and where they lack and need development)
- Interests:
- Art (painting)
- Cooking/Baking
- Photography
- Archery
 Me, Amy, and Kelly collaborate and have fun.
Amy and I have been collaborating and together, we worked on the Weekly Youth Spotlights. We worked with Nam Nguyen on putting questions into a Smartsheet.
Throughout this time we've had 90+ Step Up participant responses. So every week we choose a Step Up participant to post on our social media. We post on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Check it out! |
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Stay tuned for Step Up’s End of Summer Celebration video where we will highlight our summer programming, hear from our youth & champions as well as show our gratitude to all of our Youth Participants, Employers, and Supervisors! This will be available at the end of August. More to come!
I had a lot of fun with my teammates. And I enjoyed doing something new. So thank you all for this great experience!
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