Personal Contributions

As I’m completing my internship, I find it appropriate to now take the time to reflect on the ways I feel that I’ve contributed to the Cade Foundation. The first is helping to execute the Cade Foundation’s Race for the Family 5k on June 12, 2021. Hosted virtually this summer, the Cade Foundation’s Race for the Family is a fundraising event that connected participants from all over the country in a walk, run, or bike 5k. Many chose to attend a gathering in Maryland near the foundation’s headquarters where a live DJ, food, and gifts were distributed. Each intern was responsible for contributing to the event in a different way and I was in charge of monitoring the Cade Foundation’s various social media channels. I interacted and saved each post that either tagged the foundation or used the various hashtags we created for the event. The photos I collected have since been shared on our social media among many other ways for the foundation and are a clear indication of the work I did to help the event run smoothly. The other contribution I am most proud of from my internship this summer is the article I published in Fertility Road on male factor infertility. Fertility Road is a UK based leading infertility news source and magazine. At the beginning of the summer, each intern was asked to choose a research topic for the summer surrounding infertility to write an article to hopefully publish before the end of our internship. After consulting with Dr. Hammond, we decided that male infertility is a topic often overlooked in infertility conversations and increasing knowledge on it is very important to the Cade Foundation’s mission. I spent the first few weeks of my internship researching my topic and drafting the first copy of my article. Once I created my working copy, I shared it with Dr. Hammond and the other staff members before pitching my idea to Fertility Road, among a few other magazines. After getting my pitch approved by the editor at Fertility Road, I finished my research and submitted my final article for publication. Not only was I able to help spread knowledge on male factor infertility but was also able to increase awareness of the Cade Foundation itself, as they were tagged in my byline on the article itself. After 14 weeks with the Cade Foundation, I’m very proud of what I accomplished with them.