{"id":17939,"date":"2021-09-02T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/?p=17939"},"modified":"2021-08-19T10:22:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-19T14:22:30","slug":"callie-showalter-internship-with-the-vegetarian-resource-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/2021\/09\/02\/callie-showalter-internship-with-the-vegetarian-resource-group\/","title":{"rendered":"Callie Showalter’s Internship with The Vegetarian Resource Group"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By\nCallie Showalter, VRG Intern<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout\nthe four years I\u2019ve been vegan, I\u2019ve looked for ways to advocate for the cause\nand help spread information on vegan and vegetarian lifestyles. When I\ndiscovered the chance to intern virtually for The Vegetarian Resource Group, I\nwas very interested. I saw it as an opportunity to improve my writing skills,\nlearn more about vegan nutrition, and get more involved with the vegan\ncommunity online. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Doing this internship helped me with more\ngeneral life-skills, such as time-management, scheduling, and communication. I\nhad to schedule out my summer of internship projects, such as writing articles,\npreparing recipes, helping with vegan food reviews, and writing up blurbs for\nvegan restaurants. I planned my projects around holidays, weekends, and learned\nto allow for turnaround time. Doing everything virtually also allowed me to\nbrush up on some computer skills and email etiquette. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     One of my first assignments was to write a\nreview of a local restaurant. I picked a restaurant that is a staple in my\ncommunity, and ordered one of their many vegan options. The food was delicious\nand it felt very rewarding to write a positive review of one of my favorite\nrestaurants. After making a few edits, the review was approved to be added to\nthe blog. However small, it felt important that I was able to add my voice to\none of many in the online vegetarian community. I loved being able to encourage\nothers to try vegan food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Following the review, I began an article\non the vegan foods enjoyed by the non-vegetarian friends of other VRG interns.\nI liked reaching out to the other interns, because I don\u2019t know very many vegan\npeople, and it was interesting to have conversations with them. It was also\nslightly surprising hearing that so many of them had trouble with access to\nvegan foods in their lives. I\u2019ve been very lucky to have access to affordable\nstaples like produce, nuts, and grains; as well as vegan replacements like\ndairy-free cheeses. And, even for the interns who did have access to vegan\nalternatives, most of them stated that their friends rarely tried vegan\nalternatives. Writing the article drove me to learn more about improving\naccessibility to vegan-friendly foods. Because I work for a grocery store owned\nby a large national chain, I decided to inquire about the vegan products that\nare sold in other locations across the country. I hope to see if I can possibly\nimprove others accessibility to veg-friendly products across the United States.\nMoments like that one\u2014moments where my projects would spark my curiosity and make\nme want to change things\u2014those were some of the best parts of my internship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Since going vegan, I\u2019ve greatly improved\non my cooking and baking skills. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I have cooked\nquite often and have come to love doing it. I got several opportunities to cook\nas part of my intern projects. One of them was writing for Veggie Bits, the\nvegan product review portion of the Vegetarian\nJournal<\/em>. The VRG sent me a couple different vegan products to test and\nreview. They were unique items I normally would not have picked up myself at\nthe grocery store, and I enjoyed trying both of them. Though it was a slight challenge\nto try and write the perfect review, I felt that it helped me enhance my\nwriting skills. I also tapped into my creative side to develop two different\nvegan recipes for the VRG blog. I have plans to write my own vegan cookbook someday,\nand I loved getting the chance to write my own recipes and have them be published\nonline. I experimented with unique flavor combinations and stepped outside of\nmy usual cooking comfort zone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Ultimately, my VRG internship was\nbeneficial to me in so many ways. I ending up learning so much about advocating\nfor veganism, and I\u2019m excited to apply my knowledge when working on future\nprojects in my community. I also am grateful to have improved writing and\ncommunication skills for college, and to have behind-the-scenes information\nabout how a nonprofit works. I\u2019m excited to see where my new knowledge and\nskill set take me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nmore information about Vegetarian Resource Group internships, see https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/student\/index.php<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nsupport The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, donate at www.vrg.org\/donate<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or\njoin The Vegetarian Resource Group at  https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/member\/2013sv.php<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Callie Showalter, VRG Intern Throughout the four years I\u2019ve been vegan, I\u2019ve looked for ways to advocate for the cause and help spread information on vegan and vegetarian lifestyles. When I discovered the chance to intern virtually for The Vegetarian Resource Group, I was very interested. I saw it as an opportunity to improve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17942,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17939\/revisions\/17942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vrg.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}