Local Innovation Lab interns are making a real difference in our valley’s recovery from the twin disasters of 2020. Their impact was recently featured in our local newspaper.
The article features Local Innovation Lab intern Hannah Brandt, who worked with the City of Phoenix to clean up their post-Almeda fire water billing and helped them with their 2021-2022 fiscal budget. To quote:
Brandt is one of the first beneficiaries of Local Innovation Lab, a project borne from the 501c3 nonprofit Local Innovation Works, whose genesis can be traced back to a conversation between Humane Leadership Institute founder Stephen Sloan and Local Innovation Lab program director Ellen Holty. Last April, Sloan had just published his book “Humane Leadership: Tools to Engage, Empower, and Improve Performance” and had planned to go on a book tour down the West Coast. Then COVID-19 struck, which led to a heart-to-heart between Sloan and Holty.
“You just wrote a book about leadership, and our community needs leaders more than ever,” Holty told Sloan. “What are you going to do, here, now?”
Here’s how Hannah was impacted by the experience.
Brandt said her internship with the city of Phoenix has been an eye-opener, and a godsend.
“Honestly, better than I even imagined,” she said. “I was excited to get experience in the field I want to go down, number one, and number two, just to be involved in the community has been amazing. I haven’t had that opportunity, especially with COVID and everything. It’s been a lot of being at home and not going and seeing anything. So getting to talk with people in the community and help out has been awesome and more than I could have asked for.”
Read the whole article here.