In the most recent SHECP Talks episode, summer 2023 intern Dora Kreitzer ’25 interviewed two other Bucknell SHECP interns, Da’Mirah Vinson ’26 and Lissandro Alvarado ’25 about their experiences with the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP) internship program. Both Vinson and Alvarado interned at Foundation Communities in Austin, Texas, a non-profit which provides affordable homes, free on-site support services, and community resources such as college application assistance, tax advice, healthcare, and housing. Alvarado was an intern there in 2022, Vinson in 2023. In the summer of 2023, Alvarado was one of three participants in SHECP’s Policy & Nonprofit Leadership Internship, a program designed for students who already completed the traditional SHECP client-facing internship to gain experience in public policy and nonprofit leadership while addressing issues of poverty in communities. Alvarado spent the summer as an intern with the United Planning Organization in Washington, D.C., researching the economic security of DC residents working at low wages.
In the episode, all three students discuss their work, biggest takeaways from their summers, experiences living in new places, how the internship has prepared them for the classroom and their careers, and advice for interested applicants and future SHECP interns!
What is SHECP? What is the SHECP internship?
SHECP is a consortium of 19 colleges and universities that provides coordinated internships, coursework, and co-curricular support surrounding poverty. According to its mission statement, SHECP “encourages the study of poverty as a complex social problem, by expanding and improving educational opportunities for college students in a wide range of disciplines and career trajectories.”
One such of those educational opportunities is the SHECP summer internship. In this program, accepted students are matched with non-profit organizations doing anti-poverty work in urban and rural areas all over the East Coast and as far west as Texas, where they work full-time and live with cohorts of other interns. With organizations working across various sectors (listed in the flyer below), SHECP works to pair students with opportunities to explore their interests and career goals while also providing substantive support to agencies working in underserved communities. At the same time as they develop valuable skills and gain valuable work experience, students also deepen their understanding of poverty and learn how to intentionally integrate anti-poverty action in their post-graduate vocations and personal lives.
SHECP provides housing and a modest living stipend for the summer, as well as travel to the annual closing conference. Bucknell also provides an educational award at the culmination of the experience.