For the past three years, Give Merit has had the opportunity to work alongside some incredible college students as they participate in our Program Development Summer Internship!
Our very first year in 2017 brought us, Katia Kassof, who was a rising senior studying Interdisciplinary Studies at Michigan State University. Throughout her time with us, Katia worked on a variety of projects including mentor recruitment, mentor training curriculum, food donations, and developing a social media strategy.
Last summer, we partnered with LSA (the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts) at the University of Michigan where we had our very first team of interns! Two interns on the team were rising seniors - Nick Henderlong (who was studying History) and Grace Nagelvoort (who was studying Dance and Psychology). Reina Otsuka, who will be entering her senior year this upcoming Fall, is studying Community and Global Public Health with a minor in both Applied Statistics and Sociology of Health and Medicine. During their time with us, they blew us away with a comprehensive and detailed “College Success Workbook” for our alumni programming that outlined a variety of resources to best assist our FATE students as they approach the college-going process and ensure we are having intentional conversations about this transition.
This summer, we have been so pleased to welcome our new team of LSA interns, all three of which will be entering their Junior year this upcoming Fall! Cheyanne Killin is studying Women Studies with a minor in both Community Action and Social Change and Political Science. Abigail Findley is studying Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience with a minor in Music. Grace Dellorto (who is also a former FATE Mentor!) is studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.
Over the past few weeks, Grace, Cheyanne, and Abigail have worked on a variety of projects that include updating existing mentor recruitment resources, planning a community service day for our FATE Students, updating and developing new college resource guides for our alumni students, creating mentor-mentee huddle activities, and exploring the opportunity to expand our mentorship opportunity to another college campus.
One of our favorite parts of the internship experience is offering “exposure opportunities” to our intern team. Although working on projects is incredibly helpful for our organization, we also want to expose our intern team to the city of Detroit and introduce them to a variety of individuals who are doing incredible work here! This summer we’ve had the chance to explore Downtown Detroit, Eastern Market, Wayne State’s campus, Narrow Way Cafe, Kresge Court at the DIA, The Detroit Public Library, and Midtown. We have also had the opportunity to introduce them to Tonya UptheGrove (Former Give Merit Board Member & Learning Officer at Ruth Mott Foundation), Ashleigh Johnson (Community Engagement & Relationship Manager at Poverty Solutions), and Andrew Stein (Executive Director of City Year Detroit). Coming up, they will also meet Allie Zatkin (Regional Recruitment Manager at City Year Detroit) and Surabhi Pandit (Senior Program Officer at Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan).
So far we have had such a great time with our 2019 Intern Team and have been incredibly impressed by their work ethic and passion! We’re excited to share some of their insight on their internship experience with Give Merit this summer! Stay tuned for some upcoming blog posts written by Grace, Cheyanne, and Abigail!
If you would like to learn more about the summer internship opportunity with Give Merit, please contact our Program Director, Rachel Mazzaro, at rmazzaro@meritgoodness.com for more information!
