Akiptan's Internship program has been operating for 3 years and during this time over 17 young adults have participated in extending their agriculture business knowledge while gaining hands-on experience with Native agriculture partners. The internship program not only provides an introduction to the professional agriculture world but also financial education and Akiptan is excited to continue this program for years to come. Senior Program Officer, Dawn E. Lebeau worked directly with Mr. Elijah Brewer during his summer 2024 internship project.
Elijah Brewer is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He just graduated from Dupree High School and plans on attending South Dakota State University in the fall. While at SDSU he plans on pursuing his degree in Animal Science. He is a first-year cattle owner and grew up on a ranch south of Dupree where his cows are located. During his time in school, he participated in football, basketball, and rodeo. In basketball, he was an LNI tournament All-Tourney and first-team all-conference team in the Little Moreau Conference. Elijah focused on the programming portions of Akiptan in his internship, working on marketing and youth programming while completing Akiptan’s curriculum Introducing Native Agriculture: A Guide for Young Entrepreneurs where he focused on growing an agriculture project and learning the financial aspects of a business. Elijah’s contributions to the programs were greatly appreciated! He will head to SDSU this fall for his freshman year of college.
Why did you apply for the Akiptan Summer Internship?
I applied for the internship because I saw the opportunity when visiting the booth at the C-EB job fair and the scholarship was on the table. I visited with Phannette Gray (Loan Officer) and also the intern at the time, Layla who explained what she did in the internship and I wanted more experience with the loan process. The wheelhouse of the Native agriculture industry also interested me.
What was one of the most important things you learned during your internship this summer?
One of the most important things I learned was how to build a business plan and the details of how to make that happen. I think the booklet broke it down into steps and laid it out for us. I also liked the virtual sessions. I worked mostly in the programs department and was able to help build out the business plan contest for the upcoming year.
What is the biggest challenge you faced in learning more about Native CDFIs?
One of the biggest challenges was learning about how CDFI’s get their funding, and how it is lent out to producers. The succession planning details also stood out to me, and encouraged me to start this process earlier than I would have otherwise.
Why do you feel that Native CDFI’s matter?
I think that the communities that have lower incomes benefit from CDFI’s the most because they are able to get funding with support, the funding styles are helping producers to be able to pay the loan back in a timely manner. If someone was needing to get agriculture lending money, I would let them know to come to Akiptan because I know others that went to other lending places and had a harder time with their lending styles.
How will the skills you learned help you in your future career?
The skills I learned will help me to understand financials for when I start my business and what the steps and processes are to get things started. Building on my time management skills will also help me with college and other goals as I move along. Creating the graphics for the program department also helped me to be creative in the internship.
Are there any other things that you would like to offer that I didn’t ask?
I liked attending the Native agriculture conference this summer and I enjoyed the engagement with the other students around food systems and food products. The activities that we did were interesting. I do wish that I would have gone to more conferences during this internship.
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