I have been working on a community health needs assessment for the coastal health district managed out of Savannah, GA.  This has been a very useful way to put all the skills we learned in both community health and public health nutrition directly into action.  While most of this effort has been on my own (necessary for my schedule), I do feel like I have learned a lot about the process and all of the data and statistics that are publicly available – again reinforcing what we have learned during the past couple of years in the program.  One of my goals has been to familiarize myself with the county public health agencies and programs in the area.  As such I have also been interning with the Director of Food and Nutrition for the all the schools in the county.  I have to say, I have enjoyed these brief interactions the most.  In the next couple of weeks I will be helping them to prepare for an audit of their adherence to the new federal guidelines for nutrition in schools.  Yesterday, I attended an all-day workshop with their district coordinator to assist them in getting ready for this audit.  I also hope to be able to spend at least one day shadowing in the local WIC clinic, but that has been difficult to arrange.  All in all, I have learned a lot this summer.