Facing an ever-increasing number of service projects and with trips planned to several new partner communities, Experience Mission has hired two new employees and moved into a larger office space to ensure it can offer total support to all teams in the field this summer.
Autumn Merritt of Jackson, Michigan and Josh Gray of Indianapolis, Indiana – both of whom worked for several summers facilitating mission trips in EM partner communities prior to graduating from Indiana Wesleyan University – started with the organization this month.
Merritt will work in Michigan, EM Executive Director Chris Clum said, conducting screening interviews with dozens of potential Summer Staff intern candidates.
“We need another person badly, because this year we had more than 300 online applicants and we have to do a 90-minute interview with the majority of those people,” Clum said.
Merritt, who spent last summer in Pearlington, Miss., and ran recent Spring Break trips with Gray, said she is thrilled to come on board.
“I love it. I feel like if I had tried to create a job for myself I couldn’t have done a better job,” Merritt, 22, said. “There are lots of adventure and lots and lots to learn–there are always new challenges that keep me on my toes, so I know I won’t get bored. And you meet a lot of sweet people.”
Merritt majored in Business Administration and took a minor in Intercultural studies.
Gray also majored in Business Administration. His minor is in Religious Philosophy and Gray, 23, had been applying what he learned toward starting a church with friends in Indianapolis. Eventually, however, the church closed. Then, a house he had been renting a room in burned down.
“It just seemed like doors kept closing. The church closed, my house burned down,” Gray said.
He said Clum’s call with the employment offer was “very timely.”
“I’m very excited to be a part of EM – to continue some of the relationships I’ve made in our partner communities, and just to be a part of all the other things that EM is doing,” Gray said.
Clum said he’s excited about having the new team members on board.
“They not only understand our philosophy, approach and vision – the things that make Experience Mission what it is – they’re passionate about it,” Clum said. “They have tons of energy and they both have a great, great work ethic.”
The staff members come as EM moves into a new office facility in Port Townsend, Wash.
Clum said the move was necessary to accommodate the increased activity that will come as Gray and two temporary logistics coordinators start working in the office.
The logistics coordinators will arrive May 11. They’ll be able to stay in the building during their four-month tenure, Clum said.
“It’s a lot of work, but it’s coming together well,” Clum said. “We needed a bigger office space, and this accomplishes that. We needed a place to house our logistic coordinators for almost five months, and this provides a place for them.”
