Community Foundation Summer Interns Give Back Across St. Joseph County

For plenty of students, a college scholarship is just a way to pay for school, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with that.  But for students in select scholarship programs administered by the Community Foundation of St. Joseph County, their scholarships can be so much more.

The Laidig Service Scholarship, the Charles Martin Scholarship, and the 21st Century Success Fellowship each provide the opportunity for worthy students to receive paid summer internships throughout the course of their college years. Those internships give students real-world experience and help expose them to different roles and responsibilities.

And yes, the paycheck is nice too.

But students aren’t the only winners.

That’s because Community Foundation interns are making an impact for nonprofits that need a little bit of extra assistance in the summer, and that impact is being felt and seen all across St. Joseph County.

At Green Bridge Growers, Isaiah Roeber (pictured) has helped on the farm and helped weatherize the greenhouses. At Cultivate Food Rescue, Ashlynn Harradon has put her systems engineering training to use, helping to codify and reestablish all of Cultivate’s standard operating procedures. At Unity Gardens, Leia McCann has drawn on her own expertise to run the garden store.

In total, the Foundation placed 25 interns who provided more than 6,000 hours of work for 18 nonprofits across St. Joseph County.

That’s a scholarship program worth celebrating — not just for the students who benefit, but for the whole community it lifts up along the way.