A Summer to Remember for Shepherd Consortium Interns
After spending eight weeks of their summer assisting impoverished communities and individuals around the country, the interns from the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty came away with valuable lessons about the multiple dimensions of poverty in the United States.
The 92 interns represented 17 of the consortium member institutions. They worked alongside individuals who are seeking to improve their communities. The agencies are located in urban and rural sites in the U.S. and focus on education, health care, legal services, housing, hunger, social and economic needs, and community-building efforts.
The interns taught in classrooms from New York to St. Anne’s Mission to the Navajo Nation in Arizona; helped clients obtain employment in Washington and Boston; worked in legal clinics in Helena, Ark., and Fredericksburg, Va.; and assisted in health-care facilities in Richmond, Va., and Camden, N.J., among many assignments.
SCECP was established in 2011 and is an outgrowth of W&L’s Shepherd Poverty Program. Member institutions are Baylor University, Berea College, Centre College, the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, the College of Wooster, Elon University, Furman University, Hendrix College, John Carroll University, Lynchburg College, Marymount University, Middlebury College, Millsaps College, Niagara University, Spelman College, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the University of Notre Dame, Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee.
