Hello! My name is Corie Cappelucci and I am one of the newly appointed members of the Bloom team. I will be working for Bloom as an intern this semester while I finish up my senior year at Wittenberg University. I am extremely excited to be working for this organization and this opportunity could not have come at a better time. I say this for two reasons, the first has to do with my personal connection to Lesotho and the second has to do with some major life changing decisions that I recently worked through.
My personal experience with Lesotho comes from a trip I took to the country in the summer of 2011. I am not sure there are words that can accurately describe the twenty-eight days that I spent in Lesotho, but one that frequently comes to mind is “amazing”—my experience, the resilient and positive character of the Basotho, the country itself, and the friendships I made were nothing short of amazing. Although that word may seem ambiguous, its positive connotation seems appropriate.
I loved every moment of my trip to Lesotho and I was excited about the projects we had carried out throughout the country. I really felt like we had done our part to help make a difference and improve the future of the people we encountered, and I had ideas about how I could continue to do so once I was back at home. However, I was not prepared for the transition back to America. Upon arriving home, there were many things I realized I would not be able to do, this started with the somewhat menial failure of not being able to make it through the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie on the night I returned (I know, it seems kind of silly but it was a big personal disappointment), but soon I started to realize that there were other, more important things that I would not be able to do for Lesotho. Spreading awareness about the country is not easy when all people want to do is look at my pictures and listen to how great my experience was, very few actually take the time to listen and understand the more upsetting issues the people of Lesotho face.
It was not long after this realization that I started to feel very distanced from the country. I felt like I was losing touch with this very important part of my life and I needed a way to reestablish that connection, and that is when Bloom popped up on my radar J This internship is my way to reconnect and I could not think of a better way to do it than through this organization that was founded as a result of the very same type of experience that I had.
While this opportunity with Bloom will help strengthen my connection to Lesotho it will also help me pave the new path I have recently created for myself. As an Art History major my goal was to graduate from Wittenberg and attend graduate school for Art History and Museum Studies and ultimately work as a curator in an art museum. However, about a month ago I realized that I wanted to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector that was a little more service oriented and more geared towards working with and helping others. As a result of this I have completely altered my post graduation plans and am in the process of applying for a year of service through AmeriCorps. I am so excited about this new path and am even more excited about starting it off by working with Bloom!
-Corie
Corie is a senior at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
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