Farewell Reflection from Our Summer Intern

I began this internship during a gap year. Before my work with IMPACT, I felt unfulfilled and under-stimulated. As soon as I started, I was able to jump right in. With my designated 25 hours a week over the past five months, I have been able to help Kyree with community gardening, help Danny with the youth soccer program, create a video about IMPACT’s cooking class, go to the Health Fair that Carmen organized, collaborate with Lanita on newsletter pieces, help Sara and Oneyda at the food distribution hub, and help Ana canvas…all in addition to my primary work creating interactive e-learning courses with Yesenia.This experience has exposed me to so many different sectors of non-profit work and has really expanded my horizons as to what potential career paths I could take. I have immersed myself in the more hands-on community and network building work and invested a significant amount of time into more racial equity and dialogue based work. I have rediscovered my passion for journalism and storytelling, whether it has been writing based, photography based, video based, or multimedia based. I have met so many incredible people who do transformative and inspiring work and who I can model myself after.

Since beginning with IMPACT, I have created lasting relationships and connections which have set me on the path towards a new future. Most importantly, I have never felt like an intern in terms of social status or workload. Everybody at IMPACT has treated me as a peer professionally and personally, and thanks to this, I was easily able to find my niche within the organization and truly blossom. While I may be leaving IMPACT, IMPACT will never leave me.