Cayla Schuster- Education
Cayla’s intern project for the summer was creating a more interactive educational experience at Kimmel. She worked on a proposal for signage around the orchard, brochures, enhancing the nature trail tours with more educational content, interactive stickers, and implementing a Spanish option for our educational tours. We asked Cayla what her biggest accomplishment was this summer and she said, “I am most proud of my work to advance the nature trail experience with a tour script, signage and interactive activity.”
Danielle Smith- Business & Marketing
This summer, Danielle’s intern project was starting a Kimmel TikTok page, and incorporating reels into our Instagram and Facebook. The main goal was to have 100 followers on TikTok by the end of summer, and we had double that by the end of June! Danielle has also spent the summer growing our Instagram, and making viral videos like a cherry picking reel with upwards of 70k views. We asked Danielle what her biggest achievement was this summer and she said, “We’ve had almost 130k total views from Instagram reels I’ve posted so far, and over a 500% increase in profile engagement which I’m really excited about!”
Evie Sievert- Event Operations
Evie spent the summer planning a farm to table dinner event at the orchard as her intern project. She chose to incorporate our blackberries into a four-course meal held in the apple trees. Evie’s work to prepare for the dinner included contracting with vendors, coordinating with staff, and implementing a mobile ordering system for ticket purchases. Evie has learned a lot about what really goes into planning and operating events! Evie said she is proud of the outcome of the event, “The visitors had a good time and the orchard offered a farm to table experience.”
Trey Lamkins- Landscape Operations
This summer, Trey served as our Landscape Operations Intern. Over 11 weeks, Trey managed 17 landscape beds, covering more than 14,000 sq. ft. of plant material across nearly four acres of public-facing community space. He also made learning about our gardens more accessible by launching the new Our Gardens section on the Kimmel website which included detailed Plant Profiles. Trey identified over 100 plant species growing in our gardens and documented several at-risk pollinators—including the American Bumble Bee, Southern Plains Bumble Bee, and Monarch Butterfly—helping us better understand and support the pollinators living at Kimmel. Trey summed up one of his highlights, "I'm proud of the content on the Kimmel website that allows people to learn about using Nebraska natives to build a pollinator habitat."
Emily Martindale- Education & Events
Emily returned for a third year to intern at Kimmel. She focused on creating more educational content for kids to learn about the fruit we grow, designing an Education Jamboree for Apple Jack that is interactive and fun, and developing the third annual Kimmel Agriculture Career Day, October 15th, for high school students to learn more about careers in agriculture. Emily said, “I’m proud to continue to expand on the learning offerings at Kimmel. I appreciate the opportunity to build professional relationships and bring education to a variety of age groups.”
