By Phoenix Mertin
Evelyn Leding is a veteran member services intern for her fourth summer at AVECC in her hometown of Ozark. Evelyn is a rising senior at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, studying instrumental music education.
Though her internship is not related to music, Evelyn says, “I’ve learned a lot of skills [at AVECC] that I wouldn’t have learned in a classroom.”
Chiefly among those skills is “working with people,” she says. Evelyn remembers being shy her first summer at AVECC. “When I first took this position I was really nervous to talk to people.” But now, “I learned how to have quick but meaningful interactions [with members and coworkers alike].”
“My professor likes to say ‘we are in the people business, not the music business’ ,” meaning that people are the thing that matters more than anything else”, she says. Evelyn feels that same commitment to people at AVECC.
Since AVECC is a not-for-profit organization and members are owners of the cooperative, members receive money back in the form of capital credits. As an intern for member services, one of Evelyn’s duties is to contact members who have not received their capital credits and to help ensure that they receive their money.
Overall, the thing that stands out to Evelyn the most at AVECC is kindness. “[Coworkers] really care about each other, and it’s really important when you are working closely with people to be on a team that you can depend on,” she says. “I’ve experienced a lot of different groups of people at college, church, and jobs that I’ve done, and this is by far one of the most positive communities I’ve been a part of.”
