Doylestown, PA (June, 2014) – Sixteen college students from Bucks County have been chosen to participate in Foundations Community Partnership’s 2014 Summer Youth Corps, which offers paid student internships at local non-profit human service agencies in Bucks County serving children, youth and families. The program offers students the ability to gain practical experience while helping to effect positive change in the community working at non-profit human service agencies.

This is the seventh consecutive year that Foundations has offered the internship program. Non-profit agencies have the benefit of additional helping hands and the students gain meaningful work experience with groups that are making a difference in Bucks County.

“Our Summer Youth Corps combines community service with academic study,” said Ron Bernstein, Executive Director of Foundations Community Partnership. “The program gives students the chance to gain college credits while participating in a meaningful work experience. Many of our Partnership in Education winners have been selected for the Summer Youth Corps so they can continue their community service work.”

Through a relationship with Bucks County Community College, students are able to experience “service learning”, a form of experiential education where students learn to solve community problems and achieve real objectives for the community while earning college credits. Service learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities. Service-learning is different from volunteerism in that it is a teaching and learning approach that integrates community service with academic study to enrich learning, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.

The Bucks County SPCA is participating as a host agency or the first time this year.

Field Supervisor Danielle Wagner of Fairless Hills, PA, leads this year’s Summer Youth Corps. She is currently an MSW graduate student at Columbia University.

Students in the 2014 Summer Youth Corps program have been placed in the following locations:

1. Levittown resident Melanie Matyi is working at Chandler Hall in Newtown. She is studying neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh.

2. Doylestown resident Nicole Kopach is assisting the Aark Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center in Chalfont. She is majoring in sociology at Penn State.

3. Langhorne resident Brittany Siegman is working at the YWCA in Trevose. She is a clinical psychology student at Kutztown University.

4. Doylestown resident Viktoria O’Donnell is assisting Ridge Crest in Perkasie. She is a pre-med major at Belmont Abbey College.

5. Feasterville/Trevose resident Zachary Yingling is interning at The Conservatory: Music, Art, Drama, in Doylestown. He is attending West Chester University studying music education.

6. Sellersville resident Katelyn Derstine is interning at the Churchville Nature Center. She is studying conservation and wildlife management at Delaware Valley College.

7. Doylestown resident Emma Vibber is interning at Pearl S. Buck International in Quakertown. She is a communication studies major at West Chester University.

8. Southampton resident Zack Kodiyattu is a working at Cancer Support Network of Greater Philadelphia in Warminster. He is pre-med student at Northwestern University.

9. Warrington resident Jessica Bischoff is assisting the Children’s Developmental Program in Quakertown. She is studying kineseology at Penn State.

10. Doylestown resident Morgan Hinds is working for Libertae program Bensalem. She is a neuroscience major at the University of Pittsburgh.

11. Newtown resident Lauren Reiver is working at the Bucks County Housing Group in Ivyland. She is studying psychology at Temple University.

12. Doylestown resident David Weinstein is assisting Habitat for Humanity in Chalfont. He is studying neuroscience at the University of Michigan.

13. Warminster resident Maura Carr is interning at the Bucks County SPCA in Lahaska. She is studying veterinary and biomedical sciences at Penn State.

14. Doylestown resident Luke Biersmith is assisting NOVA in Jamison. He is studying economics at Penn State.

15. Bedminster resident Breanna Yates is interning at the Bucks County Children’s Museum in New Hope. She is an elementary education major at Penn State.

16. Doylestown resident Anna Knabe is working at the Michener Museum of Art in Doylestown. She is studying psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

Students who have completed their freshman through junior year at college and who are residents of Bucks County are eligible to participate in Foundations Community Partnership’s Summer Youth Corps. The 10-week service-learning program runs from May 27 through Aug. 1. Internships are subsidized by Foundations Community Partnership.

 

*Pictured Back row from left: David Weinstein, Maura Carr, Morgan Hinds, Anna Knabe, Katelyn Derstine, Brittany Siegman, Zack Kodiyattu
Middle row from left: Luke Biersmith, Breanna Yates, Nicole Kopach, Viktoria O’Donnell, Lauren Reiver, Emma Vibber, Zachary Yingling
Front row, left to right: Jessica Bischoff, Melanie Matyi