An Internship with the Norfolk Tourism Foundation

For the fall 2025 semester I have been the intern for VisitNorfolk, and more specifically their nonprofit arm, the Norfolk Tourism Foundation(NTF). I was their nonprofit management intern focusing on their fall fundraiser which is an annual golf tournament. My role consisted of sending invoices and emails to sponsors during the tournament time and working on materials to close out the year for the NTF. This page has been created to highlight what I learned during this experience including reflection blog posts, photos from the day of the golf tournament, and some pieces I wrote during the internship.

My coworkers and I working the registration table on tournament day

The golfers having dinner before the awards are announced

Sewell's Point main building with sponsor banners

Andrea Bear, chair of the NTF, doing the opening remarks for the tournament

Some of the prizes given away for winners of the tournament

Bear in Mind Strategies foursome golf team

Golfers heading to the greens for the tourament

Banister Nissan sponsor table for the car hole-in-one prize

CROP student with Kip, owner of Yorkies, who make and serve the food on the course

Connecting to Career-Readiness Competencies

This blog post discusses the NACE Career-Readiness Competencies and which ones I believe best apply to my internship experience and will help in my future career. Career & Self Development I believe this competency is exactly what I have been doing by having an internship in college and trying to prepare for the future. Within my internship I spent a lot of time trying to prepare for the future, first with the event that has now passed, and now with next year's event. A great

Leah Hallwirth

Internship Reflection Blog Post

This blog post is a reflection of my fall 2025 internship answering some specific questions. What SMART goals were met, which weren’t? At the start of my internship I set three SMART goals to try and accomplish by the end of my internship. Now that I am nearing the end of my internship, it is time to look back at these and consider if I was able to complete them all. The first was to improve my professional email writing skills, when compared to the beginning of my internsh

Leah Hallwirth

Scholarship Press Release Draft

This is the press release I drafted discussing this years NTF scholarship winners. I pulled quotes and began formatting the piece before marketing made the necessary changes.

Follow the link for the full piece: file:///Users/leahhallwirth/Downloads/Press%20Release.pdf

Golf Tournament PDCA

This is the PDCA I wrote following the golf tournament covering successes and potential changes for next year. I found this really helpful to gain a better understanding of what can be done to improve the event.

Follow the link to read the whole piece: file:///C:/Users/lhallwirth/Downloads/PDCA.pdf

Emails to Send Document

This document is the group sponsor emails I sent during my internship surrounding the golf tournament. I decided to save them for next year to be used as a template as well as a time line.

Follow the link to read more: file:///Users/leahhallwirth/Downloads/Emails%20to%20Send.pdf