Linfield Kemper 2011: Carrots, Karats, and Carets: A Day At Sotto Communications/Pantry Marketing + Design

By Katie Paysinger

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I am interning in the town brothel.

OK- not really.

I am spending this semester interning at Sotto Communication/Pantry Marketing + Design. The office I work in was formally the town brothel. Honest- ask the Historical Society.

My name is Katie Paysinger and I am senior Mass Communication major, Political Science minor at Linfield College. I am originally from Yamhill County and I am so excited to be able to be a part of the Kemper Internship program focusing my internship on nonprofit clients in the area.

Sotto Communications/Pantry Marketing + Design is a strategic marketing agency. Project development, planning, and management, plus design for publications and branding are all aspects of the daily life inside the office at Ford and 3rd in downtown McMinnville (Yes, right next to Ribslayer. The walk into work is torture…). Krista McCallum is the owner of Sotto/Pantry.

Here are five goals I set for myself before my internship started at the beginning of the semester:

-To develop a sense of what it is like to operate a business

-Have in-depth knowledge of website management for multiple clients

-Develop a network of business contacts through my interactions with Sotto and Pantry

-Have a set of materials/projects that I have heavy influence in to show as a product of my work

-Understand time management in terms of personal responsibilities at work and managing my school life

My work is focusing on nonprofit clients. At the moment, Yamhill Community Action Partnership has completely dominated my time and I love it. The main goal of my first couple weeks at Sotto has been to get YCAP’s new and improved website up and ready. Constant communication via E-mail and in person with YCAP personnel is crucial. Krista had been working on it for quite a while and I came in at the tail end to help finish it off. It was just launched last week. Please check it out at www.YamhillCAP.org.

In addition to the YCAP website, I have been handling the project management for YCAP’s Capital Campaign April newsletter. It is my first large solo project (granted- Krista is always right across the table to answer my constant questions) and the goal is to get it mailed by the end of the month. I will keep you updated.

Also, as a fundraiser for the Capital Campaign, community leader Ellie Gunn began a fundraiser called “Let’s Make it a Banner Year for YCAP!” Yes, Krista and I came up with the name (all part of the complete project development services offered!). Ellie is tracing hands of YCAP supporters for donations and embroidering them into personalized banners. Creating pdf flyers, text for the YCAP website, press releases to the local newspapers, and constant Facebook updates (I am an Admin for the YCAP Facebook page), are all part of the job to promote this fundraiser. See the Facebook page for updates on how you, too, can be involved in this project.

I realize this has been quite a novel, but there was just so much to say! I will leave with one tidbit of exciting conversation Krista and I had the other day. I am calling this part ‘Conversations on the Island’ because the workspace Krista and I use is a repurposed restaurant kitchen island. We are all about repurposing. If you take something that already stands and reshape it to make it even better, you’ve done well. This is a theme in all Sotto/Pantry does and it will a theme in my blog!

Conversations on the Island

(working on preparing a job ticket to send to Ashley, the designer, so she can create the newsletter for the Capital Campaign out of the content I have been preparing)

Katie- How do you spell the word for those things on the keyboard –making scissor fingers trying to make the shape for the <> symbols – They are called ‘carets’, right?

Krista- Uh…

Katie- I’ll look it up. There is the eating carrot…

Krista- The stone karat…

Katie- Ah! C-A-R-E-T. The keyboard caret. Thank you, Google.

Just a day in the life of the brothel.