By Olivia Hammill, on August 3, 2015

Well, the end is near! I’ve wrapped up all of my projects, written some thank you notes, and cleaned out my office. Almost as if on cue, the printed, finished, beautiful booklet arrived today! We had a first print run of 750 copies, so I’m super excited for them to be distributed to and used by businesses and citizens alike. My main project is officially finished on time and within budget, so yay for two small victories! Once the PDF version is uploaded to the county’s website, I’ll include a link in this post so you can look at it if you’re interested.

As my final hours in Granville County tick by, I’ve taken some time to reflect on my experience here. As I mentioned in my first blog post, it’s the people in Granville County who stand out the most when I think about my summer. Since my last post, I’ve visited the jail, emergency management, and the 911 center. No one I talked to at any of those places has an easy job. However, no matter how difficult their jobs were, every person I met talked about why they do what they do. They do it to give back to their community and make it better. The answer is simple, but it put things in perspective for me and reminded me why I was interested in local government in the first place.

Local government, at its core, is about helping and serving people directly. It’s not always a glamourous job—in fact, you could argue that it’s usually a thankless job—but the majority of local government workers, at least those in Granville County, do the work they do to make a difference. It might sound cliché, but my experience here has been anything but. I only hope I can lead with the same humility as the people here do.

From Board of Commissioners meetings, website redevelopment meetings, and strategic planning meetings to social media plans, economic development ideas, and tours of county facilities, my summer adventure has been unforgettable, and I’m so lucky I got to experience it in Granville County.

Thank you for accompanying me on this journey! I hope you learned something valuable about local government and were entertained (at least slightly) along the way. And with that, my work here is done (at least for now).

Local Gov Love,

Olivia