mmrice

During the week of May 10th, I was able to work on many different tasks while at the National D-Day Memorial. I helped out with a lunchbox lecture behind the scenes that the education staff was holding, worked on some spreadsheet work in regards to donor information, and helped prepare for the Armed Forces Day 5K. Each year, the Memorial hosts and annual Armed Forces Day 5K, though this year was a bit different. With the global pandemic at hand, the 5K was virtual this year. The above image is the shirts I helped sort into different mailing bags, add a few extra goodies in, and mail off. Despite being a virtual 5K, many people participated across the country and the Memorial staff was still able to kick off the event via Zoom and Facebook Live.

This past week I was tasked with creating two scavenger hunts for the upcoming Memorial Day ceremony. Both scavenger hunts were centered around the 5 display cases in the Education Q-Hut on the site. The above image is a watch that was used in both scavenger hunts. The first one was solely a photo-based scavenger hunt where elementary-aged students are asked to match the picture with the artifact. The second version is meant for middle school-aged children who were given statements and needed to match the statement to the artifact (for example with the above watch: This would be great for a soldier to have on him so he can know what TIME it is.)

This past week at the National D-Day Memorial our biggest task was to help prepare and carry out a large book sale. The sale included hundreds of books that were donated to the Memorial by a long time donor and due to a need for more storage, the book sale was created. My part in helping prepare for the book sale was ensuring that each book was in its correct location (ex. D-Day, Axis Nations, Allied Nations, miscellaneous etc.) During the coming days of the book sale, I met many donors and board members, as well as interact with a handful of patrons who were seemingly just visiting to tour the Memorial but ended up purchasing a book or tow as well. All books were marked down and all funds went directly to the Memorial.

My first three weeks as an intern at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia have gone quite well and I have already had my hands on a plethora of different things. This semester I will be doing a multitude small projects as well as one large project for the memorial. Smaller projects will consist of working on research questions, learning how to give tours, and other miscellaneous projects. The larger project is helping the staff put together a commemorative video that will be about 40 minutes long as it is the memorial’s 20 year anniversary this year.

Below is a photo of an exhibit I helped finalize this past week. The exhibit is in honor of Robert “Bob” Slaughter who was a D-Day veteran himself from Roanoke, Virginia and helped spring the Memorial into action. Putting together the exhibit consisted of finding photographs from the archives, as well as artifacts such as Bob’s blazer and hard hat, and creating caption cards for each artifact/picture. I feel very fortunate and honored to have created this exhibit as Bob sadly passed away in 2012.