Meet the Communication Interns

What makes Sarasota County such a fantastic place to live, work, and play? Join hosts Lisa, Sammi, and Ken as they share their personal connections to the area and discuss their favorite parts of Sarasota County. They are joined by the summer communications interns—Lin, Xinyu and Sabrina—who bring fresh perspectives and exciting projects like animations promoting water conservation and videos that highlight staff and events.

 We make it fun with a trivia guessing game and share the enriching hands on experiences our summer interns are having. Don’t miss this refreshing kickoff to a new season packed with informative and entertaining content!

More information on Intern Sarasota County can be found at scgov.net/intern. Start your career with Sarasota County at scgov.net/jobs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Exploring Sarasota County With Interns
• 13:03 Narrowing Down Sarasota County Transit

Transcript

Sammi: 0:00

Welcome to Beyond the Beach, the Sarasota County Government podcast. We've got a different name. However, it is the same game.

Lisa: 0:07

Yes, welcome. My name is Lisa Potts, Digital Media Coordinator for Sarasota County Government.

Sammi: 0:13

I'm Sammi, Digital Content Creator with Sarasota County Communications.

Ken: 0:17

And I'm Ken Weiss, the Webmaster for Sarasota County Government.

Lisa: 0:20

Now we are really excited to get this podcast up and going. The three of us work together as part of our digital team. Now, Sammi, you work a lot with our Instagram, making reels and a lot of our just general digital content, while Ken and I work on the web and social myself, social, Ken you web and now we've really gotten together to work on this podcast and find another way that we can reach our audience with Sarasota County.

Sammi: 0:42

Yeah, super excited to have another platform where we can communicate with our residents and visitors and share all things Sarasota County.

Lisa: 0:50

And I would say too, what's really exciting is, Sammi, you and I grew up here, so we're kind of talking about Sarasota County as someone who works here, but someone who's watched it change throughout the years, and to talk about the things that we love. Ken, you moved here?

Ken: 1:06

Yeah, so I'm from Wisconsin and we moved here actually because we vacationed here all the time and we absolutely loved it and it was hard to keep us away, so we figured why not just live here permanently?

Sammi: 1:12

We are a vacation paradise.

Lisa: 1:14

Have you heard of Siesta Key?

Ken: 1:16

I've heard of

Ken: 1:18

Yeah, it's a pretty cool place.

Sammi: 1:20

Been there once or twice yeah it's a great place to visit.

Ken: 1:23

Spend some time hang out with the family and friends.

Sammi: 1:25

And Sarasota County as a whole, I feel like, is a good place to work, live and play as one would say.

Lisa: 1:31

I would agree. I think there's so many different things to do. I think we have the Legacy Trail, tons of parks, amazing libraries and so many other things I can't even think of naming them, but there's so much to do here and so many things that have enriched our community with Sarasota County. Beyond the Beach is offered in multiple formats, including video now. So wherever you prefer to view your podcast, whether it's on your phone or through YouTube, we're happy to have you here and we hope you follow along and we are so excited to be your hosts.

Sammi: 1:59

I'm Sammi. I'm Lisa.

Ken: 2:01

And I'm Ken.

Sammi: 2:02

And Ken will be doing our news segment where we'll talk about the board meetings, upcoming events and so much more we're excited to explore Sarasota County with you, so why don't you go ahead and subscribe on whatever platform you watch?

Lisa: 2:14

and, with that being said, let's go ahead and get started with our first guest. Well, we are fully into summer, which means our interns are here at Sarasota County. It's an exciting year for us. We have 51 interns throughout 16 departments and, as you can see, we do not have 51 interns in the room with us. We do have three of our communications-based interns here with us that we're very excited to chat with, so we're just going to go ahead and turn it over to them. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourselves?

Lin: 2:49

Hi everybody. My name is Ling Jin. I graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design. Computer animation as my major is business as my minor. It's very nice to meet you all and I'm here as the animated video intern in the communication team. Thank you.

Xinyu: 3:02

Hi, I am Zinyu Li. I'm currently in my first year master at Carnegie Mellon, majoring in entertainment technology, and I am a communication intern here. My position is video and motion graphics intern.

Sabrina: 3:14

Hi, my name is Sabrina. I just graduated from Florida State University with my bachelor's in communications and digital media studies, and I'm currently here as the public relations intern.

Sammi: 3:25

Awesome, and do you guys have any lifetime goals you're hoping this internship can help you with?

Lin: 3:39

I do have one and then my life goes to become a really greatest animator and I have to promote like very important message to the audience. For instance, right now I'm doing an animated video about waste water turning into clean water, helping the student understand how they are important, the importance of water, the value of the water in their life, and then I also really appreciate I have an opportunity here to help me to develop my skillset in the future to become a great director or animator. Thank you.

Sammi: 4:08

Thank you, and I have seen a sneak peek of Lin's work and it is absolutely beautiful. Can't wait to see the final product for that.

Lin: 4:14

Thank you, I'm excited to show you in the future, yeah awesome, thank you.

Xinyu: 4:19

Okay, so I don't have like big dreams, but I do have something that I wanted to do for my entire life, which is to create something that will benefit specific group of people, for example, like make something inclusive for people and like promote certain ideas. And I feel like this position here really brings me the opportunity to work for local people so that there will be like specific people that will benefit from my videos. For example, I did a fireman video for the new graduated fireman and I feel like it's really my honor that this video will be like will be played on their graduation ceremony and it will mean a lot for them and their families. So it's really happy for me to like make something specific for a specific audience that can make them happy. So that makes me really like feels, a sense of satisfaction and you're doing a great job too.

Sammi: 5:13

I love seeing your work as well. She loves your work. Yeah, I love your work.

Sabrina: 5:18

Yeah, I have to agree with everyone else. I think that just making things that are going to be benefiting people and and it's so cheesy to say but doing something kind of like for the greater good and I think you that we definitely have the ability to start that by interning with Sarasota County government it really helps you put your foot in the door of, of working on communications that are really like just benefiting people r benefiting Sarasota is

Sammi: 5:43

Can you tell us a little bit about that program, how you're liking it, if you've had a favorite program, so far,

Sabrina: 5:57

So you have the actual work experience, so coming in every day, you know doing the job that you applied for. But then you also have a mentorship and then you also have professional development events. So things like reviewing your resume or the event we had on Friday where we got to do a lot of networking with other county career officials and it's a really great experience because a lot of internships you don't get those other things like a mentorship and like professional development. It's almost like you're just doing a job. So it's really great because it helps all of us grow so much professionally as well as personally and I heard you have like a really cool mentor, yeah so I don't know if you know her, but her name is Sammy.

Sabrina: 6:42

Yeah, so, but it's phenomenal because you get to grow a relationship with this person and, again, you get to learn so many things professionally and your work environment, but also personally and it's a great experience. I don't think everyone gets within their internships awesome, thank you okay.

Xinyu: 7:00

So I really like how as Sabrina mentioned about mentors my mentors are like really nice people. They really want me to learn stuff from here, which is really nice. I'm not like filling water bottles for them or like cleaning the toilets for them. I'm like really doing work for the county. I'm like gaining a lot of experiences that I want to get. So they would like be constantly asking me like do you want to do this? Or like what you're gonna do, what do you want to do? And I say my thoughts and they were like really trying to let me have that experience and that's. I think it's really nice and, in addition, like the working life balance here is like impressive and I really like how they're like really concerned about whether I'm feeling good about everything and whether I'm overwhelmed, and that feels really friendly and kind. I really appreciate it.

Lin: 8:00

So this intern program is very fascinating and I learned a lot. And I want to mention about all the mentors. I really appreciate their support and help, all their like education, and then we have a lot with mentor, we learn a lot from them, and then also they try to give us very warm welcome. They give a lot of gift, like a sketchbook and this t-shirt, and then also we learn how to act more professionally and then like a lunch, dinner or like how to talk and how to speak or how to email each other in a more professional way, and then it definitely opened my horizons because I have like experience to act like a journalist or reporter. So this is not what I did in my college before, so this is a really good opportunity for me.

Sammi: 8:47

Thank you so much great and we're glad to hear it. We have a fun trivia game for you guys, so I think we'll just play it, as whoever has the answer first speaks, and then we don't have a prize for you, but but we will give you a round of applause.

Lisa: 9:04

The prize is an internship with Sarasota County Government.

Sammi: 9:08

Yay, all righty. So we are going to dive right into our first question what year was Sarasota County incorporated? I just give a very brief guess. Yeah, go ahead and guess.

Lin: 9:22

Don't blame me if I'm wrong 1867?

Sammi: 9:31

Nope, very brave guess. Yeah, go ahead guess. Don't blame me if I'm wrong 80, 67.

Sabrina: 9:33

Nope, a little too early there, okay, yes, go ahead.

Lisa: 9:41

we recently had the centennial celebration, so we had some fun hats and I think we did quite a few events right. Oh yeah, it was a lot of fun. But yes, 1921. So we are over 100 years now. All right, so our next question how many departments are within Sarasota County?

Sammi: 9:59

Even an educated guess Sabrina's passing the mic, okay, educated guess Sabrina's passing the mic.

Xinyu: 10:05

Okay, educated guess um 25. Oh too high, okay 15.

Sammi: 10:20

Oh, too low, is it? 16 departments, almost there, that's like for the interns. Oh yeah, oh yeah, fun fact. So we do have departments that have interns, which I think you mentioned in the beginning, but we have 51 interns this year, which is crazy. That's awesome. I think it's our biggest class yet. Oh yeah, absolutely. All right, one more guess and then we'll reveal the answer 18. Good job, gold star for you. Yes, we have 18 departments.

Lisa: 10:42

Next question Can you name the four municipalities within Sarasota County, aka the four cities that we have possibly a town?

Sammi: 10:53

Maybe a town. Come on, Sabrina, you're from here, you know this.

Sabrina: 10:58

So we have town of Longboat Key, city of Sarasota, city of Venice, and City of Northport.

Lisa: 11:07

Woo-hoo, yay. And I also think, now that you said that, Sabrina, you grew up here, which is pretty cool, and so did we, yeah, so it's really cool to see within Sarasota County the people who have come from outside and those of us who kind of grew up in it, and now we're doing public service in the town we grew up in which is pretty cool.

Sammi: 11:24

Yeah, it is really cool to see that.

Sabrina: 11:26

It's really cool. I like it's. Yeah, it's just a great experience being able to like kind of represent, like, the place you grew up in and be super proud of your hometown.

Sammi: 11:34

It's a really good feeling. Awesome and do you guys want to say where you're from and where you're visiting us from?

Xinyu: 11:43

So I'm having my master's degree in pittsburgh and my hometown is Beijing, China. This is my first time coming to like such a southern city in my whole life.

Sammi: 11:55

It's really hot, but really cool here I was gonna say how's the weather awesome. What about you, Lin?

Lin: 12:02

oh, I'm from Shanghai, China, and my dad's from Tokyo, Japan, so I'm from an international family. And then I've been in Sarasota for almost five years close to five years for starting in Ringling College. So I feel like the weather is close, so I really enjoy the beach and the sea animals. Earlier you guys introduced me some very cute animal like. I see a lot of like uh, squirrel lizard. They're really cute.

Sammi: 12:30

I like Sarasota yay, good, we love that. All right back to trivia. Let's see what's our next one. Approximately how many permanent residents does Sarasota County have Estimated guess, unless you know, and we've got it down to the digit on our paper anyway.

Lisa: 12:51

According to the 2020 census.

Sammi: 12:52

Yes, thank you.

Sabrina: 12:53

So it may have grown since then, probably because I feel like so many people have been moving here, but I think it's around 400,000 residents.

Sammi: 13:03

Yeah, that is close Very close, very close, yeah, it's very close, a little higher actually really yeah, 450 50 450, close close a little lower.

Lin: 13:18

410, 433 000?

Sabrina: 13:27

oh, my god it is money.

Sammi: 13:31

742 if we're being honest.

Lisa: 13:35

Yeah, good job, gold star okay, are we ready for one last question, previously known as scat what is the new name for sarasota county transit buses and trolleys?

Sammi: 13:50

oops and music's.

Lisa: 13:51

I know breeze, that's right good job, that is correct, and breeze has on demand normal fixed route and, uh, the trolley right yep sounds. Oh, and paratransit, in case we're wondering.

Sammi: 14:05

Yes, good job. Round of applause for Lin Good info.

Lisa: 14:10

Well, thank you so much, ladies, for sitting down with us. We're having such a great time working with you this summer and we hope that this experience works out really well for you and you can take a lot with you throughout your career. If you'd like to learn more about our intern program, you can visit us at scgovnet slash intern and we'd love to see you apply for an internship in the future.

Sammi: 14:29

Before we send you over to Ken, here's a quick message from Sarasota County 311 Connect is your direct link to Sarasota County government for non-emergency services.

Speaker 7: 14:40

Track your request from start to finish via phone, text, email and web. It's never been easier to talk to your local government, so let us hear from you. Visit scgovnet slash 311 or download the app today.