It All Began with HomeAid

A few copies of my resume had been neatly printed on clean sheets of white computer paper. I sat nervously in a chair in their conference room.

One of the two ladies who had invited me in for an interview walked into the room. “Oh excuse the mess. We’re in the process of moving to a new office.” Her dark curly hair bounced as she literally threw her head back and laughed.

“Yeah, it’s not usually like this.” The other lady said with a short chuckle.

“Oh, so if I got the internship I would be in another office?” I asked.

The lady with the dark curly hair nodded. “Yeah, we’re just moving right down the street to a nicer office with more space.”

She went on to describe what the office looked like, what my duties as an intern would be, and how much fun I would have.

I nodded, laughed at the crazy dynamic between the two interviewers, and enjoyed hearing about how they helped out the homeless population in Orange County. I knew that I would love working with them and I left the interview wanting to learn more about the non-profit.

I ended up turning down the internship offer to work at a Public Relations firm.

Several months later, after I had left the firm and just before the final semester of grad school began, I ended up emailing the two interviewers to see if they had another opportunity for interns. I let them know that, yes, I had chosen to go to a PR firm over them, but that I had to leave the full-time position while I was in grad school because it just didn’t make sense for more schedule.

“We would love to have you here with us at HomeAid!” One of the ladies wrote in an email.

The next several months made up the best semester of my grad school career. I had a flexible schedule which allowed me to properly study for exams, write papers, and still have a little bit of a life on the weekends. I was happy to be helping a team of individuals who worked incredibly hard to change thousands of lives.

I loved it so much that I wanted to work there full time as their communications specialist after I graduated, but I knew I would never see them again when they began scheduling my going away lunch for the last day of my seasonal internship.

 

“Hey, I think my friend is looking into hiring someone part time if you’re interested?” The dark-haired lady said. “Remind me to give you her email so you can figure something out.”

 

I didn’t think it would go anywhere, but within the span of a weekend I had left my internship at HomeAid Orange County and came back that following Monday to work at the other organization that was located inside the same office.

Now, two years later, it’s only fitting that I leave the job that HomeAid had led me to after seeing the first structure for much-needed emergency housing HomeAid OC built that they have ownership of.

I will no longer see the interviewers every day like I did for the past two and half years. I would be leaving the first full-time career-oriented job for the next adventure, with memories of the strange and loving dynamic between the team at HomeAid, and the connections I made during my last job that had taught me so much. I will be moving on, but I will never forget all the people that I met or any of the things that I have learned along the way.

I can’t ever forget that it all began with HomeAid.