Major Healthcare Network
Institutional PR & Culinary Initiative Launch
The Brief
Florida Hospital, one of the largest and most recognized healthcare systems in the United States, operates at the intersection of medicine, community, and human stories. As a public relations intern, I was embedded inside the communications team, managing media relationships, drafting press materials, and helping shape how the institution's stories reached the public.
The work required understanding not just what was happening inside the hospital, but why it mattered, to patients, to families, to the broader community. Every press release, every media pitch, every story placed was a lesson in translating the complexity of a major institution into something a person could actually connect with.
Scope of Work
- Public Relations & Media Relations Managed day-to-day media relationships on behalf of the communications department, fielding press inquiries, coordinating interviews, and ensuring accurate, timely coverage across regional and national outlets.
- Press Release Writing Drafted institutional press materials covering hospital initiatives, patient milestones, staff recognition, and community programs, translating complex healthcare stories into clear, compelling public narratives.
- Nurse & Staff Storytelling Developed human-interest stories spotlighting the nurses, physicians, and staff behind the institution, bringing a face and a voice to the people driving care on the ground.
- Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House Launch Supported the PR strategy and press materials for the launch of the Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House, a culinary garden and wellness initiative developed in partnership with the celebrity chef. Coordinated press outreach, managed release timing, and helped shape the public narrative around the initiative's launch.
- Event Launch Coordination Assisted in the communications and media logistics surrounding the Kitchen House launch event, ensuring press coverage was coordinated and the story was positioned accurately across outlets.
The Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House
The Kitchen House was unlike anything a hospital had done before: a fully functioning culinary garden and wellness education space developed in partnership with Emeril Lagasse, designed to connect patients, staff, and the community with the relationship between food, healing, and wellbeing. Getting that story right, positioning it as more than a celebrity partnership but as a genuine expression of the hospital's mission, required careful, intentional PR.
Working on the launch press materials for this initiative was an early proof of something I've carried throughout my career: that the stories with the most real-world impact are almost always about more than the headline name attached to them. The Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House was about a hospital system investing in a more human model of care. That was the story worth telling.
Press Coverage
When the Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House opened in April 2017, the press release work paid off. The story was picked up across Orlando media, covering the launch of the first culinary wellness garden of its kind in the U.S.
The Foundation
This internship was the beginning of everything. It taught me how to manage the distance between a complex institution and the public that needs to understand it, to find the human story inside the institutional one, and how to get it placed where people would actually see it. The Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House press launch, in particular, was a real-world lesson in what it looks like when a big brand name opens the door, and thoughtful storytelling walks through it.
That experience, of working inside a major organization, learning its rhythms, and translating its most important moments into public narratives, is exactly the foundation I bring to every client engagement today. The scale is different. The heart of the work is the same.
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