We could not have asked for a better group of summer interns!
Thanks to the St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM)’s Signature Honors Internship Program (SHIP), we hosted two SMCM students, Kaley Christman and Sarah Luersen. They helped us deploy 250 oyster reef balls, collect and plant 450 Marylanders Grow Oysters cages, build reef balls with over 100 youth, and so much more!
Kaley revamped our social media accounts by adding a Facebook page and reviving our Instagram account (@st.marysriver). Please follow these accounts!
Sarah developed her leadership skills and by the end of the summer, she was leading presentations on how to build reef balls and supervising our high school interns.
We continued our partnership with the Great Mills High School STEM Program and hosted two rising seniors, Tori Wynman and Lucas Price, who contributed 100 hours of service and a capstone project. Tori worked with Dr. Santos at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and learned how to determine Dermo infection intensity in oysters. Lucas designed his own experiment comparing the abundance of critters that live on the bottom in our five acre restoration site, an oyster lease, and barren bottom.
Lucas Price had the following to say about his summer internship:
“This was a chance to have hands-on experience with a real organization that is helping the marine community, and helping to better the environment, which is something that is very important to me.”