I am a student intern with Columbia International University. I am currently in my third year of my master’s program working toward my MA in Clinical Counseling. I will be graduating at the end of April and I hope to remain at Hope Remains while working toward my professional license.
I graduated with my bachelor of science degree in Psychology with a minor in Christian Leadership from Charleston Southern University in 2014. But I did not start out in psychology. Through the patient workings of Jesus Christ, I switched my major from kinesiology to early education, and then to psychology. At the beginning of my junior year, I felt God leading my heart to work with kids, horses, and camp, which I thought meant maybe one day working at a therapeutic boarding school or some other type of residential facility. During my adolescent psychology class that year, one of my assignments led me to Hope Remains. After interviewing Ms. Melanie, I saw that Hope Remains fell into that calling of kids and horses. They did not yet have Camp Hope Remains, but that would come later. I was just excited to find a place that combined my love of kids and horses that was close to home! Fast forward a few years and I am in graduate school and looking for a practicum site. Since I live in Taylors and commute to Columbia for class, I wanted something closer to home. God put Hope Remains back on my heart. It was not on the list of approved sites, so I talked to my professors and soon it was approved and I was getting my hours here. I enjoyed investing my time into the relationships I was building with the kids at the schools doing the mobile unit and the kids here in the Mane Event program as part of practicum. Now in my internship and adding in working with the Healing Hooves program, I am enjoying getting to build relationships with those clients as well. I am excited about Camp Hope Remains this summer, too! I have worked at a residential Southern Baptist camp here in SC for the past eight summers, so doing camp is one of my favorite things! I think it is one of the best ways for kids and teens to disconnect from their world and plug into God, investing not just in a relationship with Him, but with His creation, including the people around them.
What do you do when you are not working?
I enjoy spending time with my friends and family, watching movies and TV shows, reading, being outside, and painting.
What is a random fact about you?
I love painting things for friends! They usually want me to paint a verse or saying, or landscape of a favorite place, but one of my favorite things that I have painted for someone was a picture of a rubber duck in a T-shirt pocket with one of her favorite passages of scripture turned into the logo of a T-shirt company.