Read stories and testimonials from some of the students, faculty, and community partners involved in community engagement with the CCE!

Alumni Stories

 

Alumni Interviews

Dani Skor '20: Language in Motion

I think that if you step outside and become part of the community in a bigger way, you’ll find that your world widens even more and you can get even more experience beyond just the campus.

I am Dani Skor graduating class of 2020, and now I live in Enosburg, Vermont. I am teaching seventh-grade humanities at Georgia Middle School near St Albans.


After I came back from studying abroad in Ferrara, Italy in the spring of my junior year. And I think I came back and I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after graduation and sort of became interested in teaching and heard about it I think just from an email from the CCE or some kind of advertisement, and I thought it would be a good way to, you know, kind of reflect on my experiences abroad and also get some experience in the classroom and figure out if that was something I was interested in. I was excited about the idea of kind of taking some of the things that I had learned while studying abroad about language. And I especially focused my lessons around food, which was something I was really excited about exploring while I was there and sharing it with some local students in Vermont. I know that travel is a really helpful way to kind of broaden your view of the world and the idea of taking a little taste of that to students in Addison County sounded like a great experience, along with kind of testing out if being in a classroom and teaching a lesson was something that I enjoyed. I went to a high school classroom and it was a bunch of different language students who opted in to come here the presentation, I was really nervous ahead of time because I’d never done any sort of lesson like that before, and the kids were super engaged. It was a lot of fun to share these things with them. They had a lot of questions and I just remember leaving feeling really comfortable and the teacher who had been in the room there, like told me I did a good job, and that kind of boosted my confidence too. And it was a lot of it was a lot of fun to share that with those kids. I think it’s really important for kids to learn about all kinds of different cultures and places, and my experience that I was sharing was about a culture that I had visited and gone to live in for a short amount of time. But I met a lot of other cool people through Language in Motion that I wouldn’t have met otherwise lot of international students and it was really cool to see them share their experiences living in other countries and growing up other places And now that I’m teaching, I’m teaching a lot of global history and it’s really cool to see kids kind of open up their imaginations and ideas of the world to places that are very different from Vermont and very far from Vermont.


And to see them kind of think about those ideas and make sense of them. And it just sparks a lot of curiosity and desire to travel and learn about the world and I think care for an understanding of those who are different from them and getting students that exposure to all kinds of cultures and people and languages from a young age I think can create a lot of empathy and understanding in them. It was the first time that I ever had to create a lesson. And going through that process and having support from the CCE to go through that process was super helpful, especially not being at an education major, an education major, wanting to maybe do that after graduation was that was a really helpful experience and it made me think about how to engage students and like that underlying kind of push of getting students to think about the world outside of them, I think definitely informs the content that I’m teaching now and the ways that I try to engage students in it. When I graduated, I wasn’t a certified educator and I still wanted a little bit more experience before I really took over my own classroom. So I did in AmeriCorps program in Newark, New Jersey. And I was working at a middle school there tutoring students in small groups in math, actually, which was a fun experience to kind of get into the classroom.


And then I joined Teach for America after that, and I was placed in Colorado Springs and taught high school psychology for a year and then English for a year I would say get involved as soon as possible. I didn’t enjoy Language in Motion until my senior year and aroundthat time I started to kind of look back on my first few years and I was busy doing other things, but I wished I would have gotten all of the CCE initiatives and programs.
And I think just to really put yourself out there in the community. It can feel like Middlebury, I feel like it’s a little isolating at times, like it’s a really great community and it’s a lot of fun and it can feel really fulfilling to be a part of it. But I think that if you step outside and become part of the community in a bigger way, you’ll find that your world widens even more and you can get even more experience beyond just the campus. The more that you do and expose yourself to in college, the more experience you get, of course, and continuing with that advice, try as many different things as possible and then you’re more likely to land where you want to be after graduation.

 

Kira Waldman '20 - Community Friends

[Community Friends] actually helped Middlebury feel like home because it was a little bigger than yourself. You kind of got to not worry about yourself for a couple hours a week …  

My name is Kira Waldman. I’m class of 2020. So Covid graduation. and I’m from San Francisco, California, and I’m now back in my home state of California working on a PhD in hydrology, so studying California water.

It’s wonderful. I mean, I loved my four years in Vermont, but I’m not a huge fan of the cold. So being back in California is great. And I think in my adult life, my experience and I get to explore totally new nooks and crannies, California is huge.

What is it like being back in Vermont to teach a J-Term Course?

It feels like returning home in a different sense. I think Middlebury is a very special place where exactly like you said, you see the same faces. You have a lot of the same experiences but with a little more perspective. And then you do it sort of from a different angle. So it’s been wonderful to be back and teaching Middlebury students it’s, like nothing else, it’s a really special, engaged group.


How did your time at Middlebury and involvement with Community Friends inform what you are doing now?

So at Middlebury, I was a geology major. Now, I think they expanded the departments to Earth and Climate Science, but that’s the department I graduated from. and a lot of my work in the geology department and my work was set up for community engagement. Community Friends sort of oscillated between hard science and also environmental justice and society impacts and sort of trying to create that bridge between the two.

So my senior thesis was looking at groundwater contamination, in Costa Rica and now my PhD dissertation is also focused on water quality issues but in a place a little closer to home and in California, the overarching theme being there needs to be a chemist or a geologist who’s going to do the science so that it can inform policy and change, and make sure that there’s, you know, simply a human right to drinking water.

Did you feel prepared for your PhD program coming from Middlebury?

Absolutely. Yeah. I think, primarily the senior thesis focus is really a unique experience. It’s like basically a master’s thesis. You work for, like, over a year on a project, and you’re advised by a faculty member, but it’s student-driven and, research and fieldwork and lab work and questions and all those. So I think that really set me up. And then also like knowing sort of what pockets of campus to go to for resource accumulation, especially at Middlebury when there are so many wonderful things available. I think that’s a really powerful tool in grad school.

Did you know what you wanted to study when you started college or did you figure it out once you were here?

Absolutely I figured it out in my time there. Yeah, I think I came here with the goal of being a chemistry major, which is in line with the STEM science side of things. But I took Natural Hazards my first year, which is sort of like the intro level geology class, with Professor Kristina Walowski, who showed me a really cool way to look at science through the human perspective.

So, yeah, thinking about hazards, you know, they’re caused from Earth’s natural earth cycles. But they impact people on an everyday basis. And I think that bridge, sort of swayed me away from chemistry, which I couldn’t quite see as [being as]impactful… [I] just fell in love with the geology department. Yeah, I sort of went from there… And you get to go hiking for labs and things like that. So that was a really cool way to explore Vermont.

How did you get involved with the CCE and Community Friends?

So I had always worked with kids in high school. I was a varsity coach in the summers and, before college I worked at a summer camp. And I just like I’ve always said, my favorite job in life is being a summer camp counselor. Yeah, like, that’s where I’m the happiest. That’s where I think I’m the best. I do bring that a little bit down to the professor. My freshman year in campus, one of my teammates lived with a swimmer who was named Melissa D’Annunzio, who was another community friends, student coordinator alum. And she just told me about community friends. And it was this program she does, and I was like, oh, that’s really cool because I was looking to connect more, with, yeah, young people in the community.

So I just, I started off as like, I’ll go to the info session and see what it’s about, and then quickly sort of got roped in and, fell for it, fell in love with community friends and was a mentor for a year. And then, jumped on the board. I think pretty soon after my first year. And then the spot opened up to be a collegian coordinator, when Alyssa left. So she actually the person who pulled me in initially kind of also was my, leader.


In that transition to especially as an athlete on campus. I sort of felt like my main social in time, sphere was in the gym athletic department and in geology and doing school stuff. But I was sort of looking for that third kind of connection to Middlebury as a town, outside of sports and school. And I think Alyssa exemplified how to do that really beautifully with community friends.

I think a lot of it was I loved the individuality of my relationship with Maggie, who was my community friend. And, you know, we were so each other every week for two hours, like, we were so good. It was so great. But I think, I love community and I, you know, community friends was like, bigger than just the one on one relationship for me. And so maybe I saw a little bit of opportunity in how I thought community friends could actually change. And so the pull was like, desire that, like, this is the best thing ever. And I’m, it’s serving me so much, but, like, we can do more. Yeah. And so I think that was like my first pull. and Megan briefly, who was the head of the at the time, was just really wonderful to and I think, a really fun person to get to know and work with. That relationship, I think she was like, well, this part’s open. And, this felt like a natural transition. I was a sophomore also, and, all the juniors were going abroad. So there was also sort of a natural sea opening up. and. Yeah, so grateful for that.


I think they were like, paramount to my, happiness and success and engagement in Middlebury. I think now, like I said, I had this, like, sports world in this really focused school world where, I loved it all, but, like, it just I wanted and I think I said this in the beginning of just chatting like that, coming back to home, I think many friends.


It actually helped Middlebury feel like home because it was a little bigger than yourself. You kind of got to, not worry about yourself for a couple hours a week or for me, you know, several hours a week with everyone else. But, you have to focus on something that was going to continue on, I think, like even coming back and seeing it now, you get to see the longevity of that, throughout time and also, I think college students, we take ourselves so seriously, as you know, at MIDD. Especially at Middlebury, like in basketball too. It’s like, you know, my body was exhausted and my brain was exhausted. But like, I got an opportunity to be a 17 year old kid for two hours a week, which I think was, looking back, one of the most important things in terms of maintaining a sense of, self-assurance. And just like an okay, this is a time to just kind of forget about the school and the sports. And just like, relax and be a kid. And also, you build this new appreciation of, like, the mundane things of Middlebury, like. Yeah. You know, for me, by Hall was a place they work every day for class and studying. But for Maggie, it was a place you would run up the stairs and throw paper airplanes and run back down and try and catch them. And just like you, you looked at physical spaces really differently, too.
Or like she found this room. And I think McCullough students in her that had like curtains everywhere and I think was like a room for a specific purpose, but we had no idea what it was and would play there for hours every week. So I think that, like, you got to experience this and nowhere to feel small. Yeah, I but you got to sort of like put a different filter over it when you’re with them, so


I think, yeah, I said this before, but I think that, like, balance of college is, really difficult and really tricky, and it can burden people out really, really fast. And, well, multiple reasons, I think, for the college student, passionate because it’s an opportunity to get outside your body, get outside your mind, engage in a totally different way that I think is like we should all be doing regardless of if we’re hanging out with a kid or not, but we don’t necessarily think we have the time or it’s a waste of time. But I think like building it into your daily schedule is really important for mental health and physical health. And, so that’s one of the reasons I’m passionate for the students life. And then we haven’t even talked about really the mental side of things, which is like such a unique relationship and experience for so many kids. And Addison County to get to experience, like, you know, what could be seen as this prestigious college on the Hill, but sort of debunk that myth a little bit, because when they’re when they come on the campus and they’re eating in the dining halls with all the other students, it’s just like the most fun, cool place ever. So taking the veil off of what, like the liberal arts college in their town has maybe over it, I think is really important. Yeah. And to build that trust between the college and the community, is, is an important part of part of. Yeah. Why? I’m passionate about it.


And I’m not from Vermont, so like and most of my friends in Middlebury were at Middlebury College, weren’t from Vermont either. I think I had one close friend from Vermont. And so I’m kind of an outsider moving to this place that I don’t really know. So I got to learn a lot about the place that I now call, you know, a second home from a seven year old. Because it is her home and it is where she, it’s from and continues to live. So yeah, that’s a cool. yeah. Just a way to see a new but familiar place. Kind of a few pockets. The first would be as a mentor and that one on one relationship, I think, like the simple joy of like, maybe childish or like young activities like now, in my I think they teach Intro to Water science class and like we do like a fill in the like, color by bubble thing of like the water cycle and like, just does like a first day introductory.


But these are 20, 22 year olds. But there’s something really inviting about, like returning to like, elementary activities. Yeah. at any age. So I think that skill I like bring with me, like, okay, it was actually really fun for me to do those, like, I can’t remember the name, but like the beads that you iron on for like hours on end and like, just because we grow up, we don’t necessarily lose the joy.

And now we just, like, get a little like maybe just. Yeah, so would be one thing. And then on the leadership side of things, I think, I learned so, so many skills I brought with me, for people management. I think being on the board and then being a leader of the board, I learned, yeah, from a pretty young age on how to, like, actually, like, manage people. I worked with Kylie, very closely. But then I sort of was like responsible for this group of ten people, some of which were older than me, some were younger than me, that were then responsible, you know, for 30 people themselves. But we I developed a way of, learning how to work with people, how to work with different kinds of people.


knowing that board meetings weren’t the place for everybody to share their ideas. and so the power of those one on one relationships, and in the organizational broader picture, and then the last thing I’d say also on the leadership team is that if you have an idea, just try it out. Yeah. And if it doesn’t work, you’ll deal with that later and obviously think through. You know, always talk to someone who’s more knowledgeable than is. So for me, that would be the, the faculty or the staff leader of your new friends. But like, we can’t. Kylie and I just came up with match day because we were like, there’s too many matches we don’t know what to do with. Yeah. and we tried it off and it worked.
It was awesome. I think that was sort of a skill I learned is like, if you’re in a leadership role, like be willing to shake things up, you willing to like go with the flow. And if there’s a lot of numbers, do something with the numbers. If there’s not a lot of numbers, you can go back or whatever it is.

So that sort of like, managerial, organizational, freedom, I think was a cool skill to learn from. My experience was, I was invited back by, Pete Ryan in the Earth and Climate Sciences department to co-teach a month long term class called the Geo Hazards of Costa Rica. and we. Yeah, dove in. It just ended yesterday. So we dove into, all the different hazards related to from the rich tectonic and geologic environment of Costa Rica and earthquakes and volcanoes and, tsunamis and coastal erosion and all the sort of things I don’t have to get into.


But, we worked in Middlebury for about a week, sort of doing student led discussion, and then got to travel to Costa Rica for almost two weeks, which was incredible. and then just returned back a couple days ago. So, yeah, I mean, so many, so many lessons learned and skills brought with me. I think the main one that stands out is actually what I just said. And response to your last question is sort of like, if you have an idea like, give it a shot. and so Pete and I worked really closely on designing this class, but he also gave me a sort of a young new, teacher a lot of freedom in designing the syllabus and and designing sort of the arc of the class. I think those are definitely skills I learned from time, community friends. And I’m just tired of Middlebury. Yeah. so that would be one thing. And then, yes, tying into community friends, too, I think just the power of experiential education. yeah. Is, you know, you can’t learn about rocks without being with rocks, or you can’t learn about a volcano without being on top of volcanoes.


So I think I got to see that really come to fruition and to see it in the evolution of the students understanding to which was one of the first times I got to witness that sort of firsthand, from the other side, like, see, you know, like geothermal energy, really click for a student. When we were standing under a huge 2000 meter deep. Well, so I think it was like, yeah, the you need to see it to believe it is sort of the the outcome, which I think ties into community friends in terms of just like, having those experiences, even talking about young kids coming to campus and have experiencing something for themselves, to be able to be like, oh, I could be a college student one day, or I could go to Middlebury and sort of that, that like experiential education.

Whether it’s community friends or not, there’s so many programs and wonderful organizations that are housed at the center for Community Engagement that, and that staff is so awesome that, like, if you have an idea or like, I’m interested in this, like there’s a way to figure out something that’s already going on or, support students and, you know, independent explorations outside of the organizations already in place. So like my first step would be on down to the CC.

Then beyond that, I think something I learned and yeah, it’s I said earlier, like I came from California to Vermont, I didn’t really know how this community work. They didn’t have a ton of experience in a small town from a big city. so just being willing to ask questions and whether that’s of the staff that you’re working with or of the kid you’re working with. Maggie taught me more about Vermont probably than like, any class I could have taken or about Ripton or Middlebury than any class or field trip.I think like being willing to be really curious and maybe like reverting back to the like I’m in a new place and I just want to connect sort of simplicity, I think is, is a powerful tool.

My third piece of advice would be do it with your friends. Do, something you’re interested in and recruit your friends to come along, because that always makes things more fun. Yeah. and I remember, like, by my senior year, I had gone, like, half the basketball team to be community friends. So then, like, at our big games, there was like, five kids there with their parents and cheering us on.


And, finding community within community is a is a cool thing that Middlebury splits up.

It was very abrupt. You know, we had you guys for 48 hours get off campus. So everything sort of happened very quickly. I don’t think I ever got, like, a full, like, a goodbye session with my mentee. I think we talked on the phone once.


I went back to California, but, and just emails and stuff, and she would tell me about what she was doing in class and things like that. But a lot of that magic and a lot of that closure sort of had to, yeah. And abruptly, which was which was really sad. I think, you know, it was a relationship.


I was super invested in for four years. So to not have like a final garage was that was a bummer. But, now she’s like almost 15, so we’ll see. but what else? I think, there was so much going on that community, friends, was such an important time for so many of us, and also because it was such a strong foundation, we could, like, set it aside a little bit.


So I don’t know exactly, but this is like the right answer. But like we we knew that community friends wasn’t going anywhere. Yeah, in the pandemic, we knew it would come back, whether that be in a different form, which I think it did. When you guys return to campus, or a few years later, which, like I see on campus now, it’s bigger and better than ever. That’s because of the 60 plus years of work people have put into it. Yeah. So unfortunately for, you know, six months, a year, maybe two years, it sort of had to be set aside. But once we return back to it and once, Maddie McKean and others, came back around, it just got bigger and better and stronger.


So much greater than me, it’s and that’s I think the first thing about community friends, it’s never one person. but it’s the board. It’s the staff at the CC, which really is the, the glue, keeps it all together. but yeah, that’s a that’s an analogy. I was going to use earlier is like the board is the glue.


And yeah, all the mentors are sort of the glitter and the, the part that makes it shiny and awesome. but for four years, you know, you get to work on building, you know, just building, you know, the library of community friends, bigger and bigger and bigger. some of the changes we made during my time here was introducing Match Day, which was really awesome.


And I will be honest, I came from a place of being overwhelmed. Our board was a little smaller. There was I was the only lead student, student coordinator, and Kylee was brand new to, I think that was a huge part of why Kylee and I sort of got to be a little bit visionary, because we were both like, you don’t really know what you’re doing.


I don’t really know what I’m doing. So let’s just do it the way we can, you know, within bounds. And Kylie gave me a lot of freedom and we just work together to drop these big ideas and really relied on the board to help follow through. and so, yeah, that match day, we increased our community friends, the team into our relationship almost double, I think in our first year together, and match day, I came back to what I said earlier around finding community within community.


One of our big goals, which I, I like to think was the legacy of the board that I was on, was actually creating a community of mentors, rather than just slipping these individual relationships. But like, look, there’s 150 or whatever other number of mentors on campus, who might have similar difficulties, but their mentees might have great ideas for how to work with a kid that hit sports, or a kid that hates eating in the dining halls and like there’s actually so much knowledge that can be shared and fun that can be shared, within the community of mentors itself.


So we tried to do that through the match day and just like some visibility around, here’s other people working with other people. Yeah. we tried to, encourage like we have like, dinners. And I lived in one of the big houses on campus, so got to kind of use the downstairs basement as, like, parties and dinners and, events and things like that.


So, yeah, create more of that relationship. Yeah. and then I think we also the other thing on more of the like logistical fundamental side, we, we started to include like identity based or affinity based matches in, our questionnaire. And I think that in the end that proved to be really powerful for a lot of, young kids, that is a, pretty homogenous place in terms of identity.


So the few kiddos that maybe, didn’t fit into that were able to come to us and say, we’re looking for someone with this identity or who has this experience or is from this place. and we made several matches within the first year, on identity and affinity based relationships. And I remember seeing that as a really powerful, sort of next step to community friends as you’re not matched with just a random person, but the kid in the family actually get a little more agency in who it is.


And not only comes because Middlebury students, they’re so awesome and from all over the place, they, we had enough of a, sample size to pick from. Yeah, to make that up. Yeah.


And I think it actually made for relationships that spoke longer. you know, there was a lot of times and this is early on in my maybe freshman and sophomore year when we had to redo so many matches because we hadn’t done enough pre work, preview work. and I think that, yeah, it required more from the board and required more from Kylee and I, but I ended up, you know, requiring less after the fact because we had matches that stuck for 3 or 4 years.


Right. just a semester. Just a year. So yeah, I think that would that would be my other piece of advice, going back a little bit and just be more intentional about the match making process.


Yeah. Besides, keep doing what you’re doing. It seems like. Yeah, I got to chat with you a little bit, just like the program is expanding. that continues to expand, which, you know, can be hard. Yeah, but is really a beautiful opportunity. for. Yeah, it comes back to this connection with the college and the community that is so important for all of us. You know, the college wouldn’t exist without the community. and I think that it’s not just giving back. It’s not just the generosity of students, but it’s really like thinking of it more as this bridge and of this relationship where it’s the generosity of the kids and the families in the community and of the students on campus sort of coming together. and I think, yeah, thinking about it more as, maybe less of charity, but more of, community work or not service. And I think that there’s a wonderful, future of community friends. We’re just every Middlebury student is inside a mentee when they mentor, nation grows, and then on the yeah, mentee mentors side, I think, like, you know, you can meet with your mentee, you know, ten times in a semester and you might run out of ideas. but know that the kid just wants to be with you.


At the end of the day, if you bring a Frisbee or a piece of paper and a pen, like, that’s good enough or nothing. Yeah, you know, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and how to hang out with an eight year old. You can just go for a walk on the team or use the resources that the season already has.


Yeah, I think just, you know, learn from this experience and don’t take yourself too seriously. I think, you know, even now in the role of like, talking to college students and not being the college student, the more you can just really even kind of revert back to that childlike or kid like self and, engage in that sort of silliness. And fun is a really powerful tool that I definitely learned from working at Community Friends. Yeah, bring that, bring that with you for forever. But yeah, my advice.

 

Community Partner Spotlight

The Center for Community Engagement is fortunate to partner with a network of more than 200 organizations. While some are internationally based, many of these organizations are located right here in Addison County. 

Pete Antos-Ketchum makes preparations in soil of a garden bed, one child in a face masks helps him. Another child plays with golden retriever while another man leans against a red truck watching them work. Foreground of mountains and blues skies.
Pete Antos-Ketcham, NCP’s Starksboro Center Coordinator, prepares for planting with farm helpers. 

New Community Project

New Community Project (NCP) is one of our Community Partners with both a global and local presence working towards ecological healing and social justice. At the NCP’s Sustainable Living Center in Starksboro Vermont, a small but dedicated team of staff and many volunteers focus their efforts on finding local, sustainable solutions to address rural poverty, food insecurity, and energy poverty within the community. In the words of Pete Antos-Ketcham, the coordinator of the Starksboro Center, NCP is “a small organization with a big goal, which is to change the world.” 

We had an opportunity to speak with Pete about the history of NCP, the work they do, and how Middlebury College students can help support their mission of creating a more peaceful world.  

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Q: Can you share a bit about the New Community Project and your role?

A: NCP is a small nonprofit organization. It was founded in 2003 by David Radcliff, who was formerly with the Church of the Brethren in their World Programs Office in Elgin, Illinois. NCP works for social justice and ecological healing as a way of building a more peaceful and nonviolent world. So there are a lot of issues that tie into that, where social justice and the environment intersect.

Read the full Q&A.

 

Newman Civic Fellows

Shivapriya Nair standing on a pebble beach wearing a jacket, pants and pink sneakers, smiling at the camera.

Shivapriya “Priya” Nair ’24

2023-2024 Newman Civic Fellow

Priya’s first experience with community engagement at Middlebury College was through the CCE’s Community Connected Learning course, where she helped run BIPOC affinity spaces at Mount Abraham Unified High School in Bristol, VT. Priya was also involved in Language in Motion, and was a Community Connected Project Assistant for an Environmental Studies course. She won a Public Service Leadership Award in 2022, and was named Middlebury College’s 2023-2024 Newman Civic Fellow.

“Throughout all these experiences, the real shining impact in my life was all the impressive and uplifting friends and mentors I was meeting. I had electrifying conversations about social, environmental, and health justice with people who became my best friends.” 

 Read Priya’s full reflection.

 

Patrick Kuruga wearing a white sweater, smiling at the camera.

Patrick Kuruga Wachira ’23

2021-2022 Newman Civic Fellow

Patrick’s journey with the CCE started right with his first week on campus through his MiddView trip: Working Together to Effect Change. “I learned about Community Friends through my trip leader and I knew as soon as I heard about it that I would want to be a part of it.” After that, Patrick joined Community Friends as well as other CCE programs such as Language in Motion, Middlebury Alternative Break Trips, and Page One Literacy Project. Patrick was named Middlebury College’s Newman Civic Fellow in 2021-2022 and was awarded a Public Service Leadership Award in 2023 for his dedication to community engagement at Middlebury College.

“What I find most appealing to me about these programs is the opportunity to interact with people from the Middlebury community and beyond, particularly children and to spearhead and witness the wonderful results of celebrating diversity and increasing intercultural awareness.”

 

Alondra Carmona wears a gray sweatshirt and smiles at the camera.

Alondra Carmona ’21

2020-2021 Newman Civic Fellow

During her time at Middlebury College, Alondra advocated for immigrant rights and took on various leadership roles in community engagement. She was the lead coordinator of Juntos, a student-migrant solidarity group and in 2019 led ten students on a Middlebury Alternative Break Trip in partnership with RAICES to San Antonio, Texas where they worked with individuals who had recently crossed the US-Mexico border. Alondra was named Middlebury College’s Newman Civic Fellow in 2020-2021.

“Growing up in a community of predominantly migrant Latinos, I have seen firsthand the mistreatment of such a community and how it can immobilize not just the individual but the family as well.”

Cross-Cultural Community Engagement Grant Recipients

Every year, the CCE supports a wide variety of student-directed initiatives centered on intercultural service-learning, community-building, and advocacy through the Cross-Cultural Community Grants (or CCCE Grants). 

We asked several of these grant recipients to reflect on their experiences and if they had advice to offer other students interested in applying for a CCCE grant.

  

Maya Henning `25, Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Center

Maya Henning reflects on her internship at the WSORC in Utila, Honduras.

My name is Maya Henning. I’m a junior. My major is conservation bio, and I’m from New York City.

How did you hear about the CCCE grant?

Originally, I was trying to find grants for summer internships because what I was doing was pretty expensive. And I went to CCI first. But they said that they couldn’t fund an internship that was fewer than like eight weeks, I think. So CCI recommended that I find the cross-cultural community engagement grant and I read through it and I realized that it actually did apply to the internship that I was doing, and I thought it was a really great way that it was a rolling basis so I could kind of apply whenever I wanted to. I think I did it pretty late because I didn’t know about it, but it was a really easy process and I could fill out the application and then everyone got back to me pretty quickly. It was also really helpful to propose a budget. I think that was kind of nice because then it catered exactly to what I needed and I didn’t have to feel bad about having extra money left over from something else or like if I needed slightly more than what a different grant could give me. 

What skills did you learn at the Whale Shark and Oceanic Research Center (WSORC)?

There were a lot of things that I learned here, not on the academic side of things, but I was living on this kind of remote island and it’s very different from any other community that I’ve been in. It’s very isolated. It’s it’s like 7000 people on the whole island. And it was just a totally different way of living that I wasn’t really prepared for, nor was I like expecting necessarily. I think that coming from New York City, it’s very wealthy. And so is Middlebury, but here it was kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. I saw some pretty extreme poverty and it’s just not as safe. So it was just really interesting to navigate being in a culture [where] … all you only use [is] cash and then if the bank runs out of money, it’s just that’s what it is. I learned a lot about how to travel as a solo person and just navigating it myself, and there are of course resources for people to help me. But I think I learned a lot about how to travel to a different country when you don’t know much about it and it’s vastly different from your own. It was also really interesting because everyone there … it was mostly locals and then maybe some people who came for diving. So it was a completely different culture. And I kind of like that too. It was something that… I’d never really been in before. It’s a different pace of life. It’s so detached from electronics and like nobody, not very many people … use their phones a lot or they even have phones. So it was an experience where I felt more connected to the ocean and the other people because nobody was on their phone all the time. And instead, it was just kind of living in the real world and it’s kind of everything but condensed into a smaller area and a smaller community.

I thought it was really fun to go exploring around the island with my friends and kind of learn about all the different cultures that exist and all these people’s different histories because some people were like locals to the island, and also a lot of people from mainland Honduras. And then there were a bunch of tourists who were like from all over. In my internship specifically, some of us were really from the US, but I also had friends from Greece and Brazil, so people from all over. So I was getting to learn about like their past diving experiences and like what they’ve done in like coral restoration and kind of their whole life story that’s completely different from mine.

I think one skill I really did learn about was how to work with somebody on their project and kind of contributing. Knowing that I’m working for them because there is one person who’s the research assistant and he was doing his master’s in nurse shark behavior research, and every intern at the end of the internship had to present a research project that they did, and you can do whatever you want. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be like conducting some lab experiment. But I worked for this person on his nurse shark behavior research, and I was looking at underwater cameras that were that were at a specific location. And I was looking at like behaviors in tag sharks and like, filling out a sheet for him. And I think it was really interesting to kind of have that dynamic of research where you’re working with somebody. You need to have time to plan, work together and meet up. But at the same time, they’re obviously the person who’s kind of in power. So everything kind of still defaults to them. And I still have to be somewhat on their schedule. And it was also interesting because as a research assistant, he was also kind of our mentor. It was an interesting dynamic of a friend, but also somebody I’m working for, but also kind of a mentor, just balancing all of those different things and figuring out like what kind of friendship and relationship I’m going to have with that person. And that was one thing that I learned. 

Another skill that I learned was honestly just diving skills. We did 40 or more dives while I was there. So you’re diving a lot. And I think from before I got there to like at the end, I was a much more competent diver and I feel much more prepared to go out in the future and be able to restore coral reefs and health and more like scientific diving because I’m not just like trying to figure out my buoyancy and stuff.  I can actually go out and be helpful and not just be this extra person that’s kind of disrupting it or like too focused on my own ability to dive, then be able to carry things and help put ointments on or propagate coral trees and stuff like that.

The entire internship is supposed to be marine conservation. So we did a bunch of different activities throughout that were all geared towards conserving the ocean. So I think in environmental and also community impact was we did a lot of work with locals, so we did a beach cleanup where we it was actually really sad. We were cleaning up the north side of the island and there were so many microplastics and just so much trash. And we did it for like a couple of hours. But by the end, it still looked like we hadn’t made a dent, which was really frustrating, really sad. And in the end, it’s because it all comes like the currents come and crash on the north side. So that’s where it’s all coming from. It just piles up. But the sad part is it’s also a turtle nesting ground. So it’s really tricky because there’s so much trash and these turtles are just not going to survive. Their beach is just so damaged. But I think we left. We were making an impact, even if it felt like nothing we were still helping the community, helping by cleaning it up and for the coral nurseries that are partnered with another organization. We were there on some days and then other organizations would come on different days and we’d kind of all work together to keep the trees clean and to put the corals on. So there’s a lot of work with the locals, which I appreciate because I think sometimes internships go in and they do their work and then they leave, but you don’t actually get to interact with the people who are living there.

I thought it was really valuable to be able to talk to locals, kind of hear their stories, hear their views, and the fact that my internship is working with all of these other organizations that are based in new to us so everyone can kind of communicate and figure out the problem because conservation is not just for one organization to fix. Everyone really needs to work together, get ideas and brainstorm. So I appreciated that. And I think that helped positively impact the community and also the environment. In terms of what we did, we we did a lot of conservation work in the reef itself. So I think that definitely helped the environment in that sense and the resource monitors a group of tagged corals and they have like a map of where all these corals are and they visit it once a month and apply the ointment and kind of document them, take photos to see like if stony coral tissue loss is spreading or if they’re kind of doing okay.

With that monitoring system, it’s really helpful because some of them are recovering, which is shocking because the diseases like pretty fatal, but the ointment stops the spread. It doesn’t, it doesn’t like cure it, but it stops incidents. Sometimes the coral can then recover. So I think we did a lot of good work there. And then in terms of lionfish, they reproduce so quickly they can eat a ton and nothing sees them as a predator because they’re invasive. All of the organisms in the reef just don’t even consider them. They kind of just look at them and don’t realize that it’s a predator and then the lionfish eats them. Nurse sharks in the end can eat them, but they won’t recognize them as food on their own. But if one was presented to another shark, it would eat and it would be fine. So I think that the whole goal of the internship was to do active restoration in that sense, but also the educational aspect. So when we would have lectures and stuff, a big emphasis was how are we going to teach this to other people and other communities? Not necessarily just even in New Taylor But when we get home and like talking to people at school and raising awareness about coral reef conservation, but also how humans can kind of limit their impacts on the environment at large.

We discussed at one point how to interact with whale sharks because my internship, they helped create the laws of how you interact with whale sharks and how close you can get. And it was really interesting to have that discussion because they even asked us what we thought about those recommendations and if we agreed with them if there were things that we thought should change. And I really appreciated that because we’re students, they’re experts and they were still consulting our opinions and what we thought. And it was an open discussion. And I think that kind of open discussion and collaboration in science is super important. And I thought that was a good step and a good role model for other organizations to do that and for future conferences and science to have kind of an even playing field for everyone to contribute their ideas.

How did the internship resonate with you? Did it influence the direction you want to take in your studies or career?

WSORC was purposefully my attempt to do field research after I did lab research in the coral area of study. But I think this internship really helped me choose my career path a little bit because doing this, I realized for sure that I love the field research side. I love diving. I want to be in the water all the time. Going down into a coral reef is like nothing else. Like it’s it’s beautiful. It’s just so enjoyable and it’s a different world down there. So I think this internship really taught me one more about what I want to do in the future. And I’ve known for a while that I plan to get a Ph.D., go to grad school, and have it be pertaining to coral reefs. I think this really helped me realize that I really like the field research. I like learning about coral reefs. I don’t mind going to school for a longer amount of time because it’s so rewarding to make a discovery or to learn something that will help other people combat this crisis as well. And so this was kind of just building my skills from previous summers, and it kind of all stacks up as stepping stones towards where I’m going to go in the future.

Now I’m planning to start my thesis during Jay term, but this summer I will be doing more field research and doing the research aspect and collecting data for my thesis, which is on tissue loss disease in to genuses of coral …  in Hawaii, but there hasn’t been a lot of research on tissue loss disease. But also these two genuses are never mentioned in literature. So the goal for this is now to take all the skills I’ve learned in the past few years in research in the lab and research in the field and tie it all together for my thesis, where I’ll be able to do some lab research, go in the field, collect data, refine my methodology, and then hopefully produce a paper that has some findings that are relevant and helpful for the scientific community. 

So I think all of the diving skills that I’ve learned, all the classroom skills, of course, all the baseline knowledge about coral reefs and about different marine ecosystems and how they interact are going to be helpful and especially learning a little bit about tissue loss disease from two years ago and then last year because not much is known about it. We think it’s bacteria born. Then there are some pieces of literature that kind of contradict that. So there’s a big mystery about tissue loss disease. So there’s a lot of room for discoveries and to research it. So I’m really excited to start the summer and I think that the work helped me and prepared me for my thesis.

What advice do you have for students interested in applying for a CCCE grant?

Advice for applying for a CCCE grant I would say is to find an internship that you’re really passionate about and that you’re excited to write about because in the application process, you really want to have something to say, but that you truly mean. And I think that when I’m writing, I know the difference between when I’m writing something, I’m like, I have to write about this topic, but it doesn’t interest me versus when I’m writing for my heart and writing about things that really matter to me. And I think for this grant there are a lot of essay questions and prompts that are asking you to reflect on yourself and how this internship will affect you and the people around you. So I think having an internship that you’re excited to go to and you’re very open to learning new things, having new experiences, being uncomfortable and reflecting on that in the application creates a way more genuine application where the reader really gets to know who you are and what you’re passionate about, your values and those are all really important to share. 

I think the application process overall went really smoothly. I think having a rolling basis is really helpful because whenever you get your internship and you confirm it, then you can go and apply for the grant so you don’t have to wait a long time or like be stressed about a deadline. It also kind of incentivizes getting it done early to be one of the first people to apply. Knowing that I was someone who was applying really late last year, I still was able to get funding. So I really appreciated that. It wasn’t all gone by the time I was going to apply. It was also really helpful to reach out to the people who could help me and answer my questions. So I would email a lot and I would get really quick responses that would help me with my application. And then you propose a budget, which I thought was helpful because it made me do a really solid breakdown of how much I would actually be spending there, which is helpful for myself. Anyway, it was also great because I could ask for an amount of money that was appropriate for my internship so I wouldn’t have leftover money that I didn’t know what to do with and felt badly about because I took it away from somebody else. But also if I needed slightly more money than some other grants, I was able to ask for that and it made me feel more confident, confident about doing my internship because I knew I had support from Middlebury and the CCE. So I would say start the process early because that’s always important and be in touch, be excited, and write from your heart and write what you think is important to you. I always find it easiest to write everything out on paper and then go and refine it afterward because some of my most genuine thoughts are the first things I write. So that would be my advice. And then there’s a budget template. You can look at that, but if you need help, I always ask either my parents or I reach out to the office and they’ll gladly.

Fabien Achinda `25, The Mount Olive Education Act

Fabien Achinda talks about his work supporting first-generation refugee high-school students navigate the college application process. 

Hello, I’m Fabien Achinda. I’m originally from Africa, but right now I live in Saint Louis, Missouri. I am a 3rd year here, at Middlebury College, I am a junior I’m majoring in classical studies. My program is a nonprofit out of Saint Louis, Missouri that is supposed to help educate the migrant youths. Usually they’re about first-generation to second-generation. And all that we do is we educate them about college, what it is, or any other post-high school options, and then we assess them for the process. Yeah, that’s me.

How did you hear about the CCCE grant?

So initially I was looking at some other grants on campus, and I applied to one, and I didn’t get it, and I was very upset and I was very sad because I felt like I left my community down because, you know, I had made promises to them that they, like, you know, this year would make a bigger event. It’ll be fun. We’ll have food and this and that. And, you know, we’ll have rides for people, we will pay for gas. So when I didn’t get that initial grant it really broke my heart because I felt like I had let my community down. But I spoke to Mr. Jason who worked at the CCE and Jason was like, listen man you know, there’s another grant that’s actually meant to help students with these types of programs, obviously referring to the CCCE Grant. And so I got online, I emailed, I think it was Ms. Cleveland, and then I asked her if I still had time to apply. At that point, I was a little bit late. She said, yes, very kindly. And so I immediately applied. And about two weeks later, I got it. So I heard it from Mr. Jason, who works at the CCE. I came from Tanzania and when I came from Tanzania, I came here ten years ago and I arrived actually here in Vermont, in Charlotte, which is the town over. And I was here for about four years, and then I moved to Saint Louis, Missouri.

In Vermont, there wasn’t a lot of African people. It was mostly white people, as you know. So when I went to Missouri, there’s a big community of African immigrants, kids my age, a little bit older, parents, grandparents so on and so forth. And when I was applying to colleges, I realized that  I didn’t know anything about the process. I didn’t know anything about financial aid […]and that really the only person that I could really rely on are my older siblings who they themselves got help from someone. The assistance of my mother, well, my godmother, someone who I came to know here in America who used to work in admissions and then I and then I had a really, really hands on counselor. And they both were like, so amazing with me. And they spent a lot of time teaching me how to apply, what to do, what to avoid, what to reach out for. And eventually I applied. But after I did that, I realized that many of my friends at church, many of my friends, my community didn’t have this magical godmother who was, you know, in admissions and didn’t have a counselor who was willing to work outside of school and meet with you a day before Christmas to help you. They didn’t have that. So I realized that I was very blessed in that sense.

So one of my friends, Moses, actually who was my first student, came to me, asked me for help. And so I helped him out with that. And then I realized then, like there are other kids like Moses who are smart or ambitious, who want to go to college, but don’t know how to do it, but don’t have someone to help them understand or learn about college like I did with my godmother or my cousin. That’s pretty much where it began. I realized I was blessed and that my other friends weren’t and that actually this could be a bigger cultural problem for us immigrants here because we don’t have parents who went to college, we don’t have grandparents who went to college. We really are here for the first time ever and we don’t know anything about the system.

So after I thought about this idea, after I helped out my friend Moses, I thought about the idea, I wrote, I think was like a 13 page plan of how I was going to do it. And what was the issue, my motives and how I’m going to implement my solutions to the issue and I brought it to one of my church leaders at the time who helped me out because I knew that I wanted to run this program, but I knew that I needed to have the space to do it. And the church was a good place for it. So I went to my church leader to help me get approval from the higher-ups at church for space. And one of my best friends, Justice really helped me out as well because when you’re running the program you can’t do everything. And so my friend Justice was very helpful, you know, with rides with the students before I even met with them. And so I wrote this thing and in this thing, I, I thought to myself, what is the problem? And the problem, I realized was twofold. The first issue was information. We’re immigrants. This is our first time in America our parents don’t really have much. We don’t have much to offer us when it comes to this realm of higher academia. So the first issue was information, the second issue had to do with help, assistance, more like outreach, right? Okay, you can teach someone how to apply, but sometimes that isn’t enough because sometimes you need to be with them on a Zoom call before Christmas Day or you need to be with them. And help them learn about these things. So I realized for myself, I wouldn’t have been able to apply. But if I just been told this how you do it, you know, I really was able to do it because I got help from my mom and my counselor.

And so that was … those were the two issues we needed to address: the information issue and then address the issue of hands-on, one-on-one help for the students. I would say, the I heard it somewhere online from a psychologist, they mentioned that like sometimes what is little to you can be so big to someone else. And so I like working with the kids for like an hour a week or 2 hours a week can really create a really big, big effect on someone’s life because, you know, that would lead to them going to college and them having a good job that would help them get their parents out of poverty. That’s one thing that I learned is that like, even though what I’m doing seems to be menial, like working on the ground, it could have a really big effect on the future.

Secondly, I think I learned a lot about planning and how important it is to be really steadfast with making plans because people rely on you to have that event every year and you got to have it. And so I think I’ve learned a lot about about planning. So, the result that my initial goal is to most of our families are poor, most of our parents are not financially literate. Right? All they do is they work really hard for us and they maintain us. Now, it is our job as the kids to go to school and get educated and earn money to help them move out of poverty, that is at the core of the program, it’s self-betterment for the betterment of our parents and our future families. And so I have a two kids who fit this model really greatly. My first student well, a student that I helped two years ago, his name is Dea, it’s a French name, and Dea is a very smart kid, he applied to the school in Missouri and normally Dea would have to pay a lot of money to go there. But because me and him worked together we found out solutions, Dea is going to that school for free now and now his parents don’t have to take out. The other kid called […] who is just a superstar. I actually helped her apply last year, this was her first year in college, and she has the same story. You know, her parents don’t have a lot of money, but because she worked with me and our program, we were able to find her a school that would take her for pretty much little money and with the help of other programs she went there for free as well. So theseare two stories that come out of my head. But ideally, like our job is to take the pressure off of the parents. If not now, if let’s say the kid doesn’t have a great GPA. so they have to pay money maybe later after they graduate, they have a job that could really alleviate that financial pressure that our parents feel.

How has the experience impacted you?

You know, I - I’m really a goofy person, I like to joke around, but I’m beginning to realize that people are depending on me now and that I kind of have to start being more serious and be more rigorous with myself as a person. And so I feel like one big effect that it has taken on me is it makes me think twice about my actions because like again, people are depending on me and my program. You can’t act in a silly way, like you can’t flunk out of school. You got to be an example. So when I’m here in school, I have to perform well […] for the reasons, but one of which is to show my students, you know, you know, it’s possible for an African to come to school that’s good and to do well. And so one of the effects on me is that it’s definitely made me more self-conscious maybe more like it makes me […] it makes me think more about my actions before I do them. It makes me like I, I would say I have a higher sense of discretion before I do anything because I know that I have kids who are looking up to me and I have parents who are looking for me to be the example for communities. And I would say this is the same thing for everyone working in my team. I think I think we all have the sense that we’re older guys who are leading the young generation and we cannot be, you know, we can have fun and joke around. But you have to understand that people are looking to us for guidance or to be the example. And so that’s definitely… I’m acting, I’m a lot more cautious about what I do. How I say what I say when I’m around parents or even here, like, you know, it’s important to show a good example.

What advice do you have for students interested in applying for a CCCE grant?

I’d say be very organized. I think the CCE’s very generous but you want to come up with a plan, 
a really solid budget to show them this is this is my program, this is what I do, this is my plan, and show them exactly what you’re doing and how you’ll spend every dollar, every cent. I think that way it helps them decide if you come in and say, I have an idea, but you don’t really. But you’re not really organized. That isn’t going to help anybody. It isn’t going to help you or them, you know, it’s important to come in organized. Think about your plan, think about your program. Have a solution, have a plan and come in and then tell them about it. And then ask for funds.

Arthur Martins, `24.5 Pride Beyond Borders

Arthur Martins reflects on his project Pride Beyond Borders.

Hi, my name is Arthur Martins. I come from Brasilia in Brazil. I’m a member of the class of 23.5.
And at Middlebury, I majored in English and gender sexuality and feminist studies.

I heard about the CCCE grant as I was looking for ways to enrich my summer experiences this past year, and I found information first on the website and then back in the spring semester, I met with the ever-welcoming CCE staff who helped me articulate how my ideas fit within the grant requirements and walked me through the application process. Similarly, in the fall, working with Kailee was instrumental in fine-tuning my proposals and expanding on the relationships I built over the summer to make possible the continuation and expansion of this project that connects organizations between Brazil and the U.S..

The name of my project is Pride Beyond Borders, and it was an initiative that sought to connect and create an exchange of experiences and funding between the US and Brazil-based organizations serving queer communities. One of the things that made me really passionate about engaging with this grant is that I saw a need to use myself as a resource. Being in this in-between position, studying at Middlebury, but being Brazilian. I thought of ways of connecting. what are the expertise’s of the academic knowledge, but also the lot of resources that are available from US grant-giving organizations and bringing that knowledge, expertise and funding to communities serving in Brazil. One of the main challenges that face nonprofit organizations globally is funding, and this is especially the case with organizations that serve multiple marginalized communities despite the important work that is done to serve LGBTQ communities by a range of NGOs, both in Brazil and in the U.S., they are comparatively underfunded by philanthropic organizations.  And so I through my work earlier in the summer and also learned about the limits of donor individual giving and in low and middle income communities in Brazil.

So I asked myself, what can I do from my position of in-between-ness in connection with Middlebury, but also with other networks here in the U.S. to maximize the connection and the exchange of experiences between funders, activists, organizers and organizations themselves. So I launched into this project to learn more about grantmaking, to learn more about intercultural cooperation, and how we can empower people across different cultural contexts who are engaged in similar work by connecting them. Sometimes.

The project ended up taking an unexpected turn throughout the semester where I departed from an explicit focus with working with the LGBTQ organizations and branched with work into other organizations that are based in Brasilia. One example was my work with the Brazilians Association for People with Mood Disorders, an association that is led in support of people that have experienced depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and other mental health issues as well as their families. So that was one of the organizations that I worked with, and I assisted them remotely with revamping the marketing and communications, and outreach efforts that they had, working closely with their board to support their return to in-person meetings, collaborating with local doctors and health care providers to create a list of accessible resources, especially for people that do not have access to private health insurance in Brazil. Our work also included bringing a more intersectional approach to the kind of content that they created geared internally to the ways that gender, sexuality, race, class also impact people’s access to mental health care. In the U.S. that I’ve been focusing on, as I have been here physically, presence at Middlebury, I connected with queer serving organizations in New York City and Boston to learn about the kinds of services that they develop. So community centers, mobile libraries like the nonbinarian or encouraging community organizations that encourage community artmaking as a means of fostering community like queer art in New York and and learning from their different models of initiative and development I went back and shared these with other organizations that I had been in contact with in Brazil, such as the LGBTQ Institute in Brasilia. So those were a few of the of the partners that I that I brought into this conversation.

One of the main skills I learned about this project and doing this, this process with the grant is the need for the clear messaging and expectations of your commitments when you’re collaborating, particularly when you’re doing so remotely or across cultural contexts, listening and following the lead of the people on the ground as it related to how it could be most usefulwas essential to ensuring that I was not imposing what I saw as necessary, but really in making myself the most useful for these organizations. Preexisting projects and and objectives. When it came to outreach to businesses and institutions, as I also was exploring some DEI related projects on the side, having other research on the specific needs of these communities and organizations in advance of contacting them is something that I’ll take on with me professionally as I also become more inclined to work independently with grant making in the future. I feel one of the most impactful things of doing this work was a shared sense of purpose and feeling the kinds of of possibilities for intercultural communication and cooperation when coming to the partner organizations, many of which are in my hometown and and feeling connected despite my distance to them and their project.

In the case of APTA the organization in Brasilia that I spoke about before, seeing how it generated new engagement and a fresh sense of morale for the other volunteers as well as we professionalized How the association looks like on social media and towards other people to be involved was really fulfilling. And although because of the nature of the grant-giving cycle in the US, we weren’t really able to work to secure any grants during this fall I feel very hopeful and prepared in this coming cycle in 2024 to build on these relationships and the work that we did and learning how these organizations operate and what they need to translate this into fruits in the coming months. And so where it touches me personally. 

One of the greatest experiences stemming from this is the feeling of giving back to my communities in Brazil that I have long been a part of. But being apart from as I have continued and finished my education here at Middlebury. I will move to Brazil in the more immediate months after my graduation. I feel a deep sense of being connected and on the ground with my family and friends and the people I’ve been working with throughout the semester.

And afterward, I’m unsure. But I feel very confident in the ways that a lot of the learning that I did through this project that involved independent research and engaging in kinds of professional experiences that also empowered me to lead a more nomadic life going from different communities and bringing this kind of knowledge like a pollinator, learning from and with and sharing these experiences across different cultural contexts is something that empowers me to to go forth in the world and learn from even a wider range of context and people that are engaged in similar work globally.

One thing that I also feel this experience has brought is the oddness involved in working remotely with people and through technology. although we’ve gotten used to that after COVID, but it also highlighted to me that a lot of the work that can be done in support of organizations or important initiatives that are supporting people on the ground is administrative work and work that happens behind the scenes or behind a computer or remotely in doing translation and connecting. And so I think that’s important learning too to think of what cooperation and engagement looks like, but it’s very easy to think through a front facing public facing, being at the frontline of things. So much of this important work is bureaucratic and there is such beauty also engaging and assisting with that work, especially as it relates to translating between languages and with a knowledge of how each space’s specific bureaucracy works. That I found is a very important skill to have and share.

If you’re looking to apply for the CCCE grant, do it. Apply. Discuss your ideas with the CCE staff. They are so welcoming and ready to make your drive passion and ambition turn into a reality. It’s helpful to have a clear sense of what kinds of skills and projects you’d like to bring forward to other cultural contexts and thinking of the culture also more broadly, not necessarily as nationality and and culture in that sense, but inter-generationally or even in one community. There can be many different ways that the culture expresses itself.

And finally, I think remaining open to the kinds of new connections and challenges that will emerge that can take you to unexpected directions, as this have for me, reshaped how I think of my professional future and the kinds of impacts and conversations that can bring to the world.

Privilege & Poverty

The Privilege & Poverty Academic Cluster (P&P) is a learning community that brings classrooms and communities together to address the causes and consequences of poverty and cultivate lifelong ethical participation in society. P&P students are placed in internships either locally in Addison County or nationally through the Shepherd Consortium. 

What students are saying about the P&P internship experience:

Ellie Cady, Privilege & Poverty Intern

Privilege & Poverty intern, Ellie Cady, reflects on her summer internship with the Charter House.

Hello, my name is Ellie Katie, and I am an intern at the CC this fall. I also interned at the Privilege and Poverty Academic Cluster over the summer where I was placed at the Charter House, a low-barrier homeless shelter there. I worked on a variety of things, like supporting the shelter staff as well as the shelter guests. I also was able to sit in on some of the housing coalition meetings that different nonprofits across the county had, and this was really beneficial to gain a better understanding of some of the work that different nonprofits and service agencies are doing across the county to help support individuals who are housing insecure. 

I am a psychology major with global health and Spanish minors, and this internship at the Charter House was something that I was initially interested in. I felt like it suited some of the skills that I already had, and I was in the process of exploring different potential careers that I might that I might have in the future. And that’s the beauty of the Privilege and poverty program because you were able to take some of the skills that you have and some of the interests that you have and find a job and an internship that really is suited for you. It really has provided a lot of guidance to me and what I want to do this fall. I’ve been able to continue some of that work as a CC intern and it connected me to so many different individuals across Addison County and in Middlebury. I felt much more connected to the town that I’m going to school in and even developed different relationships with people in the program. 

When I first found out that I got the internship and I’d be in Middlebury, someone told me that living in Middlebury is during the summer is a magical time. And it really was. I was able to explore different areas of Vermont, get into open water, swimming. I’m a I used to swim and a swim team so I was able to start open water swimming at Lake Dunmore in the early mornings and explore different hiking trails and different swimming holes and also got to meet so many different people who are working here over the summer. There are so many people here over the summer, so it is wonderful. If that is something you’re worried about, don’t be. It has been such a lovely experience. It experience that I could not recommend it more. If you do have any questions about any part of the application process or even if you want to know more about the work of the Charter House where I worked over the summer, I created a comprehensive guide of the work that I did with different resources. I can pass it along if you want to review that before applying, but I’m also able to answer some more general questions as well. My email is e, o, c, a, d, y, and Middlebury dot edu. Again, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d be happy to have a meeting or just answer some of your questions over email.
Good luck applying.

Emma Henry stands outside, smiling with two thumbs up, wearing a blue vest.
Emma Henry worked as a medical interpreter for Spanish-speaking patients at the Open Door Clinic.

Emma Henry ’25

P&P Intern with Open Door Clinic

Do it. It’s gonna be awesome. You’re gonna learn so much and you’re gonna be able to see parts of Middlebury that you’ve never seen before… It can be hard to get off campus and it sometimes feels like J term and the summer are the only times that you can do that… But it’s really valuable to stay in Middlebury during these times, working off campus with people who are not just 19 and 20-year-olds who are in your shoes. 

Picture of the bed of a pick-up truck packed with crates of farm-fresh food: cucumbers and summer squash.
Leslie Ramirez delivered fresh food from local farms for HOPE. 

Leslie Ramirez ’25

P&P Intern with HOPE and Atria Collective

Working at HOPE definitely changed where I see myself in a few years and where I want to be after I graduate. I’m a global security major and so I thought I wanted to work at the UN, travel the world, work at an office, and tell people what to do for a living. I saw myself wearing business casual, being out and about in the world and maybe one day I will. Though this summer as I drove this truck around picking up and counting produce, talking to farmers, walking people through the food pantry, and organizing food deliveries [I realized] that I want to first-hand help people. I don’t want to be writing policies, deeming something right or wrong, vaguely condemning behavior and then hoping it’ll change people’s lives and solve all the greed in this world. Perhaps I’ll end up doing something along those lines, though for now I actually want to be on the ground working with these people that I care for and wish to help. I realized that to have change in this world (you) have to work with your local communities that are hurting. The answer is not leaving them, you know?

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