In 2013, our grantees completed internships at STREB, Legal Aid, Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and Brooklyn Community Services. These five amazing candidates stood out from a selection group of over 30 applicants, and all of us at the Hope Reichbach Fund are proud of their work. Read on for information about the interns, where they worked, and their thoughts on the program.
Hope Reichbach Fund Interns 2013. From left to right: Janelle Anderson, Clair Margaret Beltran, Natasha Peña, Shirley Ureña, Nana Serwah Amponsah.
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Janelle Anderson interned at Brooklyn Community Services with the External Relations Department and the Sandy Relief Program.
“This internship is definitely more than a filing room and making copies.”
Janelle currently attends Buffalo State College. She is a member of H.E.L.P. Ministries and previously held the position of public relations officer for the Caribbean Students Organization at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry. Her major is Criminal Justice and her minor is in Hospitality and Tourism. She anticipates going on for her Master’s in social work. She wants to work with juvenile delinquents. She enjoys traveling and will be spending the next semester in Manchester, England. She lives by the quote “Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game, and anything you do, do with gusto.”
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Clair Margaret Beltran interned at the Gowanus Canal Conservancy.
“Not only [does the Hope Reichbach Fund] connect you with a paid internship in a field you’re interested in, as an intern, you are welcomed into a whole new network of connections and friends.”
Clair was born and raised in Washington Heights, NY. With guidance and support from the TEAK Fellowship, she graduated from The Taft School in Connecticut and is currently a freshman at Middlebury College. Her interests include languages, education, and volunteering, but after a semester at the Mountain School in Vermont, she discovered a passion for the environment and now intends to joint major in Environmental Studies and either Geography or Architecture. Combining her enthusiasm for the outdoors and sports, she hopes to create an organization that would make these experiences accessible to inner-city kids in the future.
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Natasha Peña interned at STREB, an organization that teaches a form of dance called pop action.
“You have become part of a group of enthusiastic, active, intelligent, and motivated people, all connected by one person: Hope.”
Natasha was born and raised in a bilingual household in the Bronx, NY. She attended Pomfret School from 9th – 12th grade, a boarding school in a rural area of Connecticut, where she had four remarkable years. From there, she moved on to enroll in Swarthmore College, and is majoring in Studio Art and double minoring in Education and English (Creative Writing emphasis). She is passionate about the arts as a whole and loves working with children. She also enjoys rock climbing and fencing and has a large family she enjoys spending time with.
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Shirley Ureña interned at the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn.
“These people all now serve as part of my network, a network that I hope to continue to foster, and a network that you have now joined and should always use even when you think something might not be important.”
Shirley is currently a sophomore at Barnard College, majoring in Economics. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Psi professional business fraternity. Additionally, she is treasurer of Mujeres, a group dedicated to the empowerment of Latina women. In her free time, she volunteers with MyNYC as both a program coordinator and mentor, where she helps plan workshops to motivate inner-city high school students to apply to college. In high school, she participated in MyNYC as a mentee. She currently works for Community Impact’s GED Prep Program. She is interested in pursuing a career in public interest law.
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Nana Serwah Amponsah interned at Brooklyn Defender Services.
“Through the Fund, I got to meet City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Councilman Steve Levin and many other prominent people.”
Nana is a Ghanaian-American who is currently pursuing a BA in Math/Economics at Mount Holyoke College. Nana is an active member of Sacred Symphonies (a Gospel Acapella group on campus), loves to sing, and loves to write poetry and fiction. Her zeal for helping the less privileged influences her volunteer choices. Both in Ghana and here she has offered tutoring sessions for children from low-income families as well as organized donations for them. In the future, she hopes to employ this passion towards creating an enabling environment for all children, regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds.