Edwin Carpio ’21

Christodora, New York, NY

This summer has been one of the best experiences in my life. I interned for Christodora, a non-profit organization focused on exposing urban youth to opportunities to learn about the environment and experience the natural world first-hand. I was hired as a Website and Social Media intern but I performed a variety of tasks on top of that. Christodora works with kids ranging from the 5th grade to the 12th grade. It was an absolute honor to be able to work with children and their families in hopes of providing them with an experience they will cherish and learn from. The children that Christodora works with actually have the chance to go to a summer camp in the Berkshire Mountains right near Williams College. One of my primary jobs at Christodora was interacting with the families of Christodora’s campers. I was trained to use the Salesforce platform and through Salesforce, I contacted families and got the chance to walk them through signing up their kids for camp. This was one of those instances where I felt my social skills improved—I was even able to improve my Spanish fluency. For most of my life, I have known that I wanted to work directly with families so calming parents’ fears about their children going away and ensuring them that everything would be fine was very rewarding.

Processing a donation received after sending out a summer appeal letter to help support Christodora.
Processing a donation received after sending out a summer appeal letter to help support Christodora.

Being a Website and Social Media intern, I had to work on the Christodora.org website using my knowledge of WordPress. When I arrived, the website had places of clutter that I relieved, it did not have Instagram integration and engagement that I addressed, and I also worked on promoting events on Governors Island through social media. While I did work in the Christodora office for the majority of the summer, I also traveled to Governors Island to engage with children in team building activities, nature learning activities, and science presentations.

I want to say that the most valuable part about working with Christodora was the staff. The Executive Director Judith Rivkin taught me that I should pay attention to detail because that is where success is. During team meetings, Judith would make sure notes were being taken to not lose any information or thoughts; many good ideas sprouted from team meetings. She was very good at passing on her knowledge of ergonomics to me. Furthermore, my coworkers, Tim Schroeder and Alejandro Vinueza made me feel like I had been working with Christodora for years. In my first few weeks at Christodora, they familiarized me with how Christodora functions, entrusted me with financial and personal aspects of the company, and made me feel welcome. I worked very closely with Alejandro on outreach to families.

Summertime is an incredibly busy time for Christodora serving roughly 200 students at camp, as well as creating and sending a summer appeal letter to raise money to send kids to camp and fund our educational programs. Christodora has a small staff in the New York office meaning that my role in the office had to cover a lot of bases. Some days at the office required me to mail out hundreds of donation requests which was tedious work but very crucial to a non-profit organization. I had never mailed a letter because I am so used to using the Internet, but I think that learning how the United States Postal Service works and about postage is going to be necessary in my future endeavors. In addition, I did all of the normal “intern jobs” such as working a printer/scanner, organizing and archiving paperwork, writing emails, making flyers, etc. While these jobs may seem mundane, I found tons of value in them because they were new to me. It’s the little things in life that society is slowly starting to fade out in light of new technologies and new techniques. I fell victim to the “why not just send out an email?” mentality but I realized a phone call or a letter are just as good if not better.

Hiking on Governors Island with students on a warm summer day.
Hiking on Governors Island with students on a warm summer day.

I intend to follow the pre-med track, attend medical school, and work at a hospital one day. And if I’m going to be in labs, medical conferences, and research hospitals the rest of my life; working at Christodora was a way that I could sharpen some skills outside of those things. I would say that it has made me a strong applicant for other internships because I have increased my ability to listen and communicate effectively, and heightened my willingness and ability to handle uncertainty and conflicting demands, and made my summer fun.

There’s this saying that if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. By no means have I made it yet, but working in midtown Manhattan at the Christodora office disciplined me to get up every day, get work done, and then go home with no distractions. The routine schedule of working everyday gives me insight into what I want from a job. It’s inspiring to say the least.

Christodora had several other interns that I worked with on a regular basis. We were all very different people coming from different points in our lives, but Christodora provided a safe work environment that gave me a place to build relationships with my coworkers. I feel as if working as a team is just as important and working individually. The friendships I made at Christodora with my coworkers, with students, and staff are very important to me.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed my time working at Christodora, I do not see myself working at a “desk job” in the future. I valued the interaction with families and staff because that can translate over to working with patients; but now I learned that I need a more fast paced, demanding work environment like a hospital setting. I think that knowing what you want to do with your life is equally important as knowing what you don’t want to do with your life.

Christodora Families and Staff gathered for a reunion to celebrate past summer camp students.
Christodora Families and Staff gathered for a reunion to celebrate past summer camp students.

Working alongside Alejandro, I contacted families to make sure that their children were healthy and fit to go off to camp. In this process, their doctor and parent had to sign off so that the child could go to camp. This was probably my favorite daily task. I got to analyze real medical information and ensure that the campers were going to be healthy and safe at camp. I am very interested in medicine and different medical conditions, and by processing medical forms for hundreds of kids, I picked up some common medical terminology, learned how to read medical insurance papers, and gained some knowledge on a lot of common medicines people take. It was my first taste if you will, of the medical industry.

This opportunity to grow as a student, as an employee, and as a person would not have been possible at all without the help of the Kraft Family and their generous sponsorship. I am very thankful and grateful for the support I received to be able to work at Christodora this summer. Likewise, I would also like to thank the people in the Williams College ’68 Center for Career Exploration. They encouraged me to apply to the internship. Last but not least, thank you to Christodora for making me a part of the team. It was an unforgettable experience.