Gladney Blog

Hey Gladney friends and family!

My name is Mikayla Ollie and I have been an intern at Gladney for 3 weeks. I am interning from the University of North Texas while in my last semester of my degree for Human Development and Family Sciences. Before joining Gladney, my idea of my future career was a bit broad. I just wanted to help people. I wasn't sure how; I wasn't sure where; I wasn't sure of much. I spent most of my college career working HR for a cut-throat, dog-eat-dog, 'high-end' retail company. Although I enjoyed my HR job, I really didn't want to continue with that company. As I looked for internships in the HR field, nothing really fed my hunger to give back to the community. Then a miracle happened....

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It is with mixed emotions that I am finally saying goodbye to being the Colombia intern. I am so excited to learn about what else is out there, but I have become so comfortable and in love with Colombian adoption. It's going to be hard to leave. Luckily, Beth and Angie are both on the service trip to Colombia this week, so I don't have any tasks piling up, which makes it physically easier to leave, but emotionally I really am going to miss working with the whole intercountry team. When I started this internship, I had NO idea what to expect. I didn't know much about adoption to begin with, and I knew even little about Colombia especially Colombian adoption. Now, I feel educated on so much regarding the whole process, and I feel like my Spanish has gotten a teeeeeennnyy, tiiinnnyyy, eeeensy, weeenssyy bit better. Thank you so much to everyone I've worked with; from Beth giving me my weekly list of to-dos and answering my numerous questions to Suzanne and Camille helping me figure out the oh-so-frustrating copy machine, I am so grateful for all of you, and I hope you know how much I appreciate you and admire the work y'all do for this wonderful place. I have learned so much from this experience and this organization as a whole, and I promise to carry everything I have learned here with me in my future. Gladney truly has captured my heart.