The Family Center in Helena, Arkansas

Another day, another meal to prepare for fifty kids. What will it be today? My co-intern Kelsey and I peruse The Family Center’s cramped maintenance closet where most of the donated dry goods are stored, alternatingly voicing suggestions of what we might serve the kids for breakfast today. Cereal? Cheesy grits? Our resources are limited. After a few weeks, we’ve finally gotten the hang of this routine of running the Summer Feeding Program—an unexpected responsibility within our roles as interns at The Family Center. Now that we’ve established a good working relationship with our supervisor, Ms. Gracie, and explained that we don’t feel comfortable passing PopTarts off as the children’s breakfast serving of fruit, she has allowed us a tiny bit more freedom with the menu and budget. We’ve introduced the kids to things like whole-wheat toast, and healthy snack combinations like peanut butter and celery.

I have no idea what I’m getting myself into when it comes to teaching these dance or cooking classes, but I’m giving them my best shot. If one thing is certain, I can always anticipate having to prepare to feed several dozen kids a day, ages zero to eighteen. Serving and supervising each meal is a whirlwind, but after four weeks, we have it almost down to a science. Ms. Val, the organization’s finance person, usually holds down the kitchen while Kelsey and I alternate between the rooms where they eat, catching milks before they spill and snatching air-born hot dogs before they get smooshed into the carpet. We direct the trays toward trashcans rather than the table or floor, break up fights, and attempt to keep the kids’ energy at bay by reading a book, playing a game, or allowing them to play with our hair. Periodically, one of us runs back to the kitchen to clean and restock trays in preparation for the next carload’s arrival. We have grown and will continue to grow close to many of these kids over the course of the summer. Their comfort with us has led to some brief but heart-wrenching conversations in which we have to tell them repeatedly that, no, we can’t give them money, and, no, we can’t bring them home with us.

The school system in Helena has been collapsing for years. Teach for America teachers comprise a great number of the teachers in public schools, but those who have been successful in their attempts to improve the kids’ grades have been investigated for inappropriate incentivizing. Successful teachers, rumor has it, are sometimes even dismissed for improving students’ grades, because the school system depends on the funding they are provided for underachievement. Some kids go to the higher quality KIPP school in town, a public charter school that can’t accommodate the city’s entire child population and must instead admit applicants based on a lottery system. About half of the kids in our feeding program go there.

Some say culture is deep and unshakeable in the Mississippi Delta region. Others say that culture has been wiped away by the rise of industrial farming over the past several decades. But I don’t think culture is something that disappears; people may disappear, but culture simply changes. Since the mechanization of agricultural production, the population of Phillips County has plummeted by the tens of thousands. Sharecroppers’ cabins have long been abandoned, and governmental housing developments erected and populated in their stead. That’s the culture here; it’s simply packaged differently than it used to be. Whether people choose to talk about it or not, one of the cultural aspects that runs deepest in Helena is institutionalized racial marginalization; from sharecropping to the projects, it’s still alive here and, unfortunately, still doing well.

So, put six college interns—five white and one black—in a modular duplex in rural Arkansas for eight weeks and what do you get? Lots of conversations about race, a number of lingering glances when we go out together in public, plenty of questions about why we would want to spend a summer in the delta, and a handful of uncomfortable moments in which some or all of us have broken cultural barriers that we didn’t realize were still standing so resolutely in parts of our country. But, being the visitors that everyone in these small towns recognizes us to be, we seem to be given a bit more leeway, or forgiveness than the native Phillips County resident. Some of our challenges are large and theoretical, and others minute and practical.

We were told before heading in Phillips County that our arrival there would feel like taking a step back in time. On the contrary, my experience has revealed that there are centuries-old ideals about race and class that are very actively butting up against the reality of burgeoning present-day social progress. This opposition creates tension that stagnates the potential for economic upturn, and widens the gap of intolerance. The Family Center’s services provide essential day-to-day aid to those in need, but the question of profound and lasting change in Phillips County will only be solved when racial barriers and economic prejudices begin to be broken down through education. Unfortunately, the reality is that our eight short weeks here couldn’t accommodate for such profound change. So, we’ll continue to do our part to help those in need meet and overcome their everyday challenges in Phillips County, and in doing so acquire knowledge that will inform our future quests to understand how to more deeply effect change in the face of economic inequality.

School District of Hillsborough County (SDHC) in Tampa, Florida

I remember my first week interning at the School District of Hillsborough County (SDHC) in Tampa, Florida last summer when my supervisor took me to meet with Debbie Cook, the Director of School Reform. Debbie was talking about how she tries to solve the following question: “how did the district fail to meet the needs of our schools?” in response to schools that received a school grade of a D or an F. One solution was putting highly effective teachers in the district’s highest need schools. I raised my voice and talked about how learning is not only in schools but also in homes, e.g., children or families that do not have access to books at home or illiterate parents and guardians that cannot help with schoolwork. Then, Debbie really opened my eyes when she said that she knows very well about how poverty and race and gender (amongst other social factors) affects students’ performance but as a district, we cannot expect less from these students because they are “poor inner city kids.” Our standards for these kids should not change because they are on free lunch programs or because they go to a school with a 99% black population.

Even though I knew that our country is still segregated, seeing it for myself in elementary schools was frustrating. Most of the highest need schools have high percentage of students of color and almost all of the students receive free lunch programs. On the other hand, schools that are receiving a consistent grade of an A have small percentages of students of color and the number of students receiving free or reduced lunch was significantly lower. Schools are not receiving a D or an F because the students are black; a lot of it is because the system they are a part of is not set up to benefit them. School-to-prison pipeline is a very apparent reality for a lot these students. The school grading system is created by the largely right-wing Florida state legislative and as a result, most of their agenda hurts a very specific demographic: the poor students of color.

I learned that we need more social studies and civic engagement in our schools. Few students have seen someone who looks like me, an Asian, so they asked me if I was Chinese or if I came from Tokyo. Teaching elementary students about social (justice) issues is a dream of mine, so I decided to use the students’ unawareness as an opportunity to teach the students about the history of race in the U.S. to explain why these stereotypes exist and are harmful. It is about really believing that the third grader in my class wearing a shirt that reads, “Harvard Class of ?” will not only get accepted into Harvard but will also have other wonderful options to choose from. It is about experiencing eight weeks in Florida, doing what I love and growing so much as an activist, an educator and a human being. It is about taking that experience, recognizing my own privileges and feeling neither guilty nor ashamed but using it as a tool, as much as I can and as best as I can.

Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation

When I heard about the Shepherd Internship Program, I was immediately excited at the opportunity to combine my interest in economics and public policy with my desire to do work that improves people’s lives. I was lucky enough to be placed in an internship with Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation (DBEDC), a non-profit that specializes in urban economic development in the Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston. While working at DBEDC, I was able to see how a successful non-profit is run and learn how thoughtful economic development in a city can be carried out.

The main project that I was able to learn about and be a part of this past summer was the Quincy Heights redevelopment project. When it closed in the summer of 2013, it was the largest project ever undertaken by DBEDC. The $56 million project is intended to both create jobs and provide vastly improved affordable housing units for the community. The new Quincy Heights housing units will significantly bolster the availability and quality of affordable housing in the neighborhood. In addition to DBEDC’s demonstrated commitment to housing low-income families, the new buildings have been designed to reflect the best practices in environmentally friendly construction and energy efficiency.

This investment is part of a larger effort to revitalize the Quincy Street Corridor, an area with high poverty rates, underperforming schools, and a rate of subsidized housing that is almost twice the citywide level. The new affordable housing units will be complimented by new stations along the area commuter rail line as well as more frequent and cheaper service. The transformation of a former, and currently empty, meatpacking factory into a new food production, distribution, and small business incubation center will allow this project to cohesively address three of the most important objectives of urban development: housing, jobs, and transportation.

David Paolella and other Boston Interns

During my time at DBEDC I learned about the important role that the federal, state, and local governments play in economic development of low-income areas. Much of the work that DBEDC does in Dorchester would be impossible without public financial support. I began to see how market-driven investment and growth can discriminate based on geography and demographics. Past historical injustices can lead to future economic injustices, and the government can play an important role in dealing with these market failures. Committed planning and vision at the local level combined with both private and government funding has the power to transform an urban community that may have trouble keeping up with traditionally favored parts of a city.

In the future, both at Middlebury and beyond, I am interested in studying the effectiveness and economic outcomes of domestic and international policies that target growth and development. I see my focus in both economics and geography as a perfect combination for assessing policy, as governments face the tall task of not only designing plans that make economic sense but also figuring out how to apply them over diverse geographic spaces. Having a real world experience this past summer will be valuable as I move forward in my education and career.

David Paolella is a member of the class of 2014.5.

Camp Interactive

Most afternoons after work, the eight other employees and I at Camp Interactive (CI) would close our computers, shoulder our backpacks, and make the trek as a team down to the subway station. Strangers half-joking and half-surprised told us we looked like an after-school special—so many different kinds of people from such disparate social, economic, and cultural backgrounds—skipping, running, and pushing our way down the street past spitting air conditioning systems and under train tracks. We were an eclectic and young group of self-proclaimed entrepreneurs—the creative energy overwhelming sometimes to the point of distraction. We were a haphazard family—rough around the edges and imperfect, but friends.

Ella Sorscher and CampInteractive Community

Camp Interactive is the epitome of a small mom-and-pop shop. This environment was new and unexpected in a city so famously hostile as New York, but was necessary to the kids Camp Interactive served. Nestled in the belly of a Section 8 apartment building in the Bronx, CI’s bright blue and orange door, was CI’s welcome sign to the outside world. Once a Laundromat, then a crack den, and now a non-profit program center for young adults, the space was multi-functional and open. While the city’s businesses, residences, and inhabitants overgrow the physical capacity of New York City and constantly push the envelope of its economy, CampInteractive has changed to fit the time and need of its community. Over the past two years, it has developed into more than an afterschool STEM—science, education, mathematics, and technology—center.  Middle and high school students come to the CI program center to learn how to function in today’s technology workforce. They write code, design apps, and learn entrepreneurial skills to not only function but also thrive in the most quickly growing workforce in New York City.

Camp Interactive uses its connections to some of the most influential tech startups in the city—GroupMe, FourSquare, Google, and Skype—and across the United States to provide its students with opportunities to both meet and work with the most successful people in the field. The dynamic between New York’s wealthiest as board members and philanthropists and the young adults CI serves could have created a chasm between the haves and have-nots, but instead created a community of co-learners.

This summer I learned that “Youth Outreach” is at its most potent and influential when it creates a safe and personal environment to nurture the population it serves. Camp Interactive owes its success to the personal and honest relationships it fosters with the students and supporters–opening doors between both communities and connecting them in vibrant and creative ways.

Ella Sorscher is a member of the class of 2014.

John Graham Shelter in Middlebury, Vermont

One of the most rewarding aspects about my experience as an intern at the John Graham Shelter was getting to know the residents. I glued myself to a chair in the common living space and sat there with a book, ready for someone to strike up a conversation. An older Panamanian woman, grateful for the company, was willing to talk to me. A few months later, the two of us were working on applications for her disability payments. The trust we built up during those conversations in the living room over the course of the summer proved to be paramount. Met with resistance at every turn in the process, she shared with me her feelings and personal experiences of mistreatment. I did not try to give her wise words or advice because I had none to offer. I learned that my role was to listen. I reacted to her words. I gave her respect.

Working at the John Graham Shelter helped me to see some of the problems in poverty outreach, specifically in the social services of the Addison and Chittenden counties. With so many organizations trying to better the livelihoods of residents, it is hard to establish a readily available set of information. The world is far from perfect, but it is reassuring to know that social services, like the shelter, try to make some improvements. As an intern, I learned to understand some of the stories of the men, women and children at the John Graham Shelter. We had similar interests, similar goals. Residents at homeless shelters are not to be buried by social misconceptions of poverty and therefore dismissed to the lowest bar of society.

My internship was a truly valuable and rewarding experience. I know for sure that I have grown by learning about the underprivileged and I hope to find remedies for disadvantaged people in whatever work I do in the future.

Andrew Leckerling is a member of the class of 2014.

Middlebury Community Care Coalition

Interning with the Middlebury Community Care Coalition (MCCC) offered me the perfect opportunity to explore sustainable farming practices while simultaneously working on a project for the community. I had hopes to learn more about gardening as well as how to teach people to use fresh vegetables as a means to improve their health. I did learn all that, and more.

I directed and coordinated a Farm-to-Table program at the Nash Farm in New Haven, Vermont. The purpose of Farm-to-Table is to grow fresh and local vegetables in the community and for the community. The MCCC provides daily community lunches and weekly community suppers for residents of Addison County. The meals provide an opportunity for people in need to receive a substantial and reliable source of nutrition, as well as create the space to foster a community of support.  Fresh, organic food is abundant at the tables because of the volunteer help and the support from local farms. Through the work of Farm-to-Table, food insecure families are given direct access to the often-unaffordable produce.

For the Nash Farm, I focused on getting more volunteers involved. We needed more than the volunteers from the Congregational Church, as the gardens needed work immediately. When the harvest came, so did the conversations about meal preparation and serving. Although I was accustomed to the variety of vegetables and foods, for some the experience was a fresh exposure; ordinary vegetables to me seemed like foreign objects to others.  I altered my thinking and the approaches I have with using food. We decided to put out several baskets each week at the community supper for people to use during the week. The response was incredibly positive; I intentionally brought more produce than I thought people would take, and it was all gone before the supper was finished!

Being a part of an organization that helps to incorporate fresh produce into the lives of people aren’t fortunate to afford them was an amazing experience.  It’s incredible how the quality of food plays a role in improving health and livelihoods and it’s a shame that impoverished people struggle to access local produce.

The lessons I learned about gardening, forecasting vegetable harvests and planting processes, paired with lessons about being a part of an organization, coordinating volunteers, compromising and adjusting, made for a truly valuable experience.

Courtney Devoid is a member of the class of 2013.5.

Middlebury Community Care Coalition in Middlebury, Vermont

I really had no idea what to expect from my internship this summer working as the garden intern for the Middlebury Community Care Coalition. My general assumptions included that I would manage the farm-to-table program and coordinate with the Community Lunch and Community Supper programs. Beyond those shallow generalizations, everything remained a bit of a mystery for me until the first day when I immediately plunged into the world of MCCC.

Molly Rose-Williams

MCCC runs programs in the Middlebury area focused on meeting the immediate fundamental needs of the local population: the beloved and most commonly known Community Suppers, the Community Lunches, the Charter House’s winter family shelter, and the transitional housing apartment on Main Street. In 2011, MCCC looked to bolster the meal programs by starting a farm-to-table program in an effort to provide the highest quality of nutrition possible, in the most affordable and efficient way. The harvest had proven to be overwhelming the first two years of its conception. Vegetables on vegetables on vegetables, and no sufficient outlets to account for the bounty! When I came on board, everyone anticipated August with a certain amount of dread, weighed down by the memory of gallons of unused frozen produce from last year still haunting the organization’s freezers.

The simultaneously challenging and rewarding experience was entirely unanticipated. Four days a week on the farm, and four days a week in the kitchen cooking and serving lunch, and processing vegetables was a dream job. As someone who grew up in a family that loves vegetables, it was incredibly fulfilling to get to share that love with others, as well as learn from others about their food preferences and relationships. I sank my teeth into the work, both literally and figuratively. I learned about volunteer coordination and management, and improved my communication and leadership skills.

The first-hand look into how the local food movement could really be made accessible to an underprivileged population was the most exciting. MCCC gave me a taste of community in a way that I had never experienced before. Individuals were brought together from all walks of life to share meals and conversation.

As I move towards graduation, I am more and more grateful for the opportunity I had this summer to explore both my interest in local food and environmental issues, and in issues of social justice, as well as really begin to explore how they intersect. I know that my experience with MCCC will greatly inform how I move forward in my immediate job search, now confident that I want to throw my energy into issues of food justice.

Molly Rose-Williams is a member of the class of 2013.5.

Open Door Clinic in Middlebury, Vermont

For ten weeks this summer I lived in Middlebury, interning at the Open Door Clinic near Porter Hospital. The clinic is geared toward all uninsured or underinsured residents of Addison County, yet I worked primarily with Mexican migrant dairy farm workers. As a fluent Spanish speaker, I interpreted at medical appointments and translated documents from English. I also found myself engaged in conversations about improving cultural competency at local healthcare practices.

I always feel a little bit culturally confused at Middlebury, a prestigious private liberal arts college with a generally affluent student body. As a full-time student I receive many privileges that make me very much a part of elite society. Life before Middlebury was a little different; my family lived in a tent for the first few years of my life and my education revolved around an incredibly underfunded public school in a rural, working-class environment. I attend college because of very generous financial aid. This summer I found that this mixture of influences could be useful in the professional world, that I could communicate with coworkers, migrant farmworkers, medical professionals, and farmers easily, and switch between different modes of interaction without difficulty.

Another important element of working at Open Door Clinic was to be a part of the Middlebury community as a resident of the town as opposed to a student of the College. Although I was acquainted with some residents of town from my church community, the internship provided me access to the wide array of the Addison County community, from the most privileged to the most deprived. From donors offering tens of thousands of dollars in donations to farm workers unable to speak English and suffering from viral infections, I gained a new appreciation for the vibrant and supportive community that exists in the county and became attune to how students are truly separated from it.

The opportunity to see the infrastructure and opportunities available in Addison County was invaluable. Vermont has provided several free or discounted insurance programs for low-income residents, more than almost anywhere else in the country, including the Doctor Dynasaur program, Green Mountain Care, and free or reduced care plans for low-income patients at all Vermont hospitals. It seems as if these programs, although on the right track, address the symptoms of social inequality rather than the causes.

Working at the clinic this summer made me think more about my own place in the community, and how I might put the excellent education I have received at Middlebury to use. My internship has made me passionate about the rights of immigrants in the United States, both in promoting their rights in this country and observing their reasons for leaving their home countries. I see myself as more of an advocate than an observer in these matters of immigration, and I feel a much deeper connection with the Addison County community.

Forest Jarvis is a member of the class of 2015.

Department of Social Services in Child Protection Services and Foster Care/Adoption in Lexington, Virginia (2006)

My six-week summer in Virginia was revelatory. Part of my work with the Department of Social Services (DSS) was finding residential placements for youth in foster care. I quickly moved away from a romanticized vision of the poor after witnessing many people refuse to utilize social services or repeatedly abuse the generosity of compassionate people. Through my interactions with the clients, I encountered impoverished people who were given opportunities and provided with means to improve their situations but who were unwilling to accept such offers, even with the threat of being sent to jail or losing custody of their children.  Unsatisfied with the opportunities at hand, some of my clients asked for more from the DSS, the government, the courts and others.

I recognized that the services that the DSS offered, even if accepted, did little to change the much larger structural and societal issues that contributed to an individual’s personal situation.  In light of these experiences, I came to see the tension in distinguishing when to show compassion – cutting someone slack for their unfortunate position – and when to argue for the implementation of the law – making people accept the consequences for their actions or inactions.

Working with the marginalized and living a life of service certainly stayed on my mind as I graduated from Middlebury: I worked for a time in residential care for adults with developmental disabilities, and I tried out religious life as a nun in a convent. I hadn’t realized what a deep-seeded desire I had tapped into during my Shepherd Internship in 2006 until four years later, in 2010, when I started working at Germaine Lawrence, a residential treatment program for teenage girls.

“This is how my heart beats,” I told myself. This is why it beats. The sustained and involved work at Germaine Lawrence gave me experiences and a more complete language to articulate the tension that I scratched during my Shepherd internship.  I became acutely aware of deeper sufferings of the poor, the trauma, mental illness, developmental disabilities, and so many other factors. I started to make sense of why the clients in Virginia didn’t improve their situations when it had seemed to me that they denied and refused every opportunity to change.

I think back very fondly on my summer in Lexington, VA. The important but limited interaction I had with young people left me wanting to work directly with them in similar therapeutic settings. I have recently begun a three-year program for a dual Master’s degree in Social Work and Theology & Ministry at Boston College.  I’m especially interested in the importance of trauma-informed care in clinical work and what it would look like to create trauma-informed communities.

Marie Lucci is a member of the class of 2008.