Today, July 28, is National Intern Day, and what better day to celebrate the wonderful interns and young people who are working at LongHouse this summer?  An internship should provide a learning opportunity for our future workforce to gain real world experience, but what is often missed is the learning opportunities presented to us by the interns.  If as the say goes that everyone you meet is your teacher, these interns taught us new ways to approach challenges and inspired us with their positive, energetic attitudes. As the saying goes, "they understood the assignment."

Lucas and Kay, shown above, started work in early June and hit the floor running with a myriad of tasks and projects.  Lucas is from New York City and graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts. He attends Wesleyan University and is a Music major.  Kay grew up in Quogue and graduated from Westhampton Beach High School. She will be a junior this year at Smith College with a major in Mathematics and Statistics and a minor in Art History, museums concentration.

Ian is our garden intern who is learning landscape design from the ground up. He lives in Washington, DC where he has already worked for his mother's landscape design company. Ian returns to DC this fall to work and save money for college where he plans to study landscape design. He brought his experience from his work with his mother's company to LongHouse including working well with others, customer service, fluency in Spanish, and an extensive knowledge of horticulture.  We will miss his cheery attitude, and positive presence in the gardens.

Caroline completed her internship at LongHouse in 2019 and has returned nearly every summer to work as a valued member of the staff. She hails from Shelter Island and attended Ross School. This year she graduated from Nazareth College where she majored in Museums, Archives and Public History.  Caroline is excited about her upcoming move to Boulder, Colorado where she will seek work in the museum field.

Lucas, Kay, Ian and Caroline took on every challenge, every task and every assignment and completed them with amazing clarity, skill and cheerfulness that really illustrated what young people can do when given a chance.  Their futures are bright and ours are too, having learned so much from them this summer.