Mayor’s interns earn hands-on experience at VolunteerNow

Jazzie Bryant and Jorge Servin, two Dallas area high school students, dedicated eight weeks of their summer interning with VolunteerNow’s Community Engagement team, as part of the Dallas Mayor’s High School Intern Fellows Program. Both interns worked on multiple projects throughout their time at VolunteerNow, gained experience in community outreach and learned about the importance of volunteerism.

“In the world of volunteering, there is a place for everyone. It starts by thinking about how you can help solve a problem in your community,” Jorge said. “Once you start, you will see the effects of volunteering in both yourself and the people around you.”

Both Jazzie and Jorge spoke to hundreds of employees at the Santander Consumer USA Employee Volunteer Fair. They introduced the employees to VOLY.org and showed them how to get involved in their local communities. Jazzie and Jorge also took a deep dive into their own neighborhoods to answer the question “Is my community resource-rich or resource-poor?” During the community-mapping project, the interns were able to walk around their neighborhood, interact with businesses and in the end, provided data to support their findings of nonprofits and other resources as compared to other areas.

Before leaving VolunteerNow, each intern took time to research local nonprofits and selected a community service project to work on this fall. Jazzie will become a reading buddy with Readers 2 Leaders during her senior year and Jorge is interested in working on a project with Keep Dallas Beautiful Incorporated.