Week 1: Cannonball
The first week flew by and it’s crazy to think our first week has come and gone. Cannonball welcomed us with open arms, throwing us into a project that required resilience, organization, teamwork and even some introspection. Our task was to expand the mission of STLMade, a city-wide initiative to positively change the perception of St. Louis.
STLMade is more than just a phrase, a hashtag, or a campaign: it’s a movement. Whether you’re 7 or 97, STLMade strives to make you feel at home, display the city’s powerful grit and resilience, and enables you to blaze your own path for success. For college students, STLMade is about starting up their careers, instilling confidence for them to stand out in their communities and equipping them with the life skills to stay in the city where their lives began. Our end goal: getting every student to say “I am #STLMade.”
Tapping into our personal experiences and preferences as college students, we were able to provide Cannonball with four recommendations to grow STLMade. Our hard work was met with hard play: watching games of the office’s signature game “Schnu,” admiring the adorably fluffy office pup Banksy, playing with the odd toys around the building (bobbleheads, Game of Thrones inspired chairs and a mildly-creepy life-sized kangaroo are just a few) and filling up on endless amounts of peanut butter M and M’s.
We’d like to give a special shout-out to some of the individuals who worked with us directly: Marianne Welsh, Kris Hoelscher, Tracy Whelpley, Clair Thibaudeau, Amy Venturella, Neil Wissman, Joe Bishop and Emily Oswald. These individuals took time every single day to offer us direction on our project, meet with us one-on-one about our career interests and goals and overall, helped make our week at Cannonball successful. I’m not sure where we would be without your insights and advice!
Check out some of our favorite moments of the week:
