Summer fellowships allow students who rarely venture off campus during the academic year a chance to understand the community beyond Bowdoin.
The Community Matters in Maine Summer Fellowship Program is an umbrella group of fellowships and internships coordinated by the Community Service Resource Center (CSRC), which allows students to work with a nonprofit of their choice, either here in Brunswick or in another part of Maine.
"The Community Matters in Maine summer fellowships offer students the opportunity to apply their academic talents and skills to the work of local nonprofits, helping to build capacity in these organizations while providing an intensive experience in the nonprofit world," said Susie Dorn, director of the CSRC.
Dorn coordinates the community action fellowships, a group within the Community Matters in Maine fellowships. The Psi Upsilon fellowships, aimed at environmental studies majors, are the other fellowships that fall under the Community Matters in Maine umbrella.
"For all, it presents a chance to learn from strong community leaders while helping to make connections between the campus and the local community," she said.
McKinley grants and the Preston Public Interest Career Fund (PICF) also allow students to work for nonprofits, although these grants are not limited to Maine.
The community action fellows work with local organizations including Five Rivers Arts Alliance, Tedford Housing, the Town of Brunswick, and Volunteers of America to learn about how the nonprofits function and to obtain experience for future careers.
Sara Griffin '09 will be working with the Five Rivers Arts Alliance this summer. As a visual arts and art history major, she will apply her academic background in art to a local nonprofit in order to learn "how art can really impact people."
Part of her desire to work with this nonprofit stems from the fact that she is "concerned about the art world, how elite and detached from the real world it can be."
Griffin added that she wants to "get involved in a community that brings the arts to everyone."
Amy Ahearn '08 will be working through another program; she has received a grant from the Preston Public Interest Career Fund, and will work with Partners in Ending Hunger, a nonprofit located in Portland.
Ahearn will conduct a food insecurity survey and create a manual for administering this survey in other parts of the country.
"The Public Interest Career Fund grant appealed to me because it allows you to design your own project with a nonprofit organization of your choice," she said.
Past fellows spoke highly of their experiences in these programs in Maine.
"The fellowship was an excellent foray into the environmental field and nonprofit work. I significantly improved my ability to creatively solve problems, as there were new projects and issues every day in the office," said Julie Ledewitz '08, a recipient of one of last year's Psi Upsilon Fellowships.
"This [past] summer made me realize that Brunswick has tons of interesting things going on and is a really vibrant town in itself," said Debbie Theodore '08, last year's fellow at the Five Rivers Arts Alliance.
"The variety of organizations coupled with the interdisciplinary nature of the students' majors fosters rich discussions about current issues in Maine, and how we can work collaboratively in communities to effect change over the long haul," Dorn said.