MULLINS – This summer 12 students from Duke University are taking part in internships throughout Marion County.
They are here as part of the Benjamin N. Duke Scholars Program. Any high school student from either of the Carolinas is automatically put into contention for the scholarship when they apply for Duke University as an undergraduate. The purpose of the scholarship is for students from the area to give back to the Carolinas.
“We are investing back into our community,” Tolison Humphrey intern for Marion School District One said. “I think often we externalize problems out to different nations, but I mean going back into your own backyard and your home and seeing what’s happening, I think that’s what our community is about.”
The interns include Sasha McEwan, Rebecca Jeffries, Xiaoyang Zhuang, Jacqueline Stedman, Cory Adkins, Allyson Santini, Casey Edwards, David Hong, Erin Harrington, Lauren Jamiolkowski, Tolison Humphrey and Benton Wise. Each one of the students are working in various career fields throughout Marion County.
The locations include Advancing Rural Community Health at Francis Marion University, Troy-Johnson Intergenerational Day Care, FMU Center for the Child, S.C. Dept. of Employment and Workforce, Nichols Head Start, the City of Mullins, Mullins Police Department, Eastern Carolina Community Foundation, S.C. Future Minds, Mullins Recreation Department, S.C. Women’s Connection, Marion School District One, and Wildlife Action Inc.
“We’ve been really lucky to get that sort of hands on experience but there is definitely this intensely academic aspect to our internship as well,” Lauren Jamiolkowski intern with the Mullins Police Department said. “Which has been, I think like a gift in turn of just combining the learning aspects.”
Outside of their internships, they have been visiting different churches throughout the county every weekend. They have also attended city council and school board meetings in Mullins.
The students helped with the Marion County Library Book Drive during the annual Foxtrot Festival. They also visited Marion County Habitat Humanity to help clean out boxes and sort though items the agency wanted to put out in their store.
“I think a good phrase is one my internship precept uses a lot … monitor and pretest and I feel like that’s what we’ve all been doing,” Benton Wise intern at Wildlife Action Inc. said “Monitor our activity within the community, monitoring what our thoughts and feelings are and adjusting to it, and I feel like in that way we have been able to engage our community in a positive manor.”
To learn more about the interns visit http://www.duke.edu/`cme17/Newsletter1.pdf and to learn more about the B.N. scholarship go to www.bnduke.org.
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