From New York City to Charlotte, several students involved in the Study USA program spent their summers interning with nonprofits, making real-world impacts across the U.S.
New York
New York City is home to Midori & Friends, a nonprofit that provides tuition-free music education programs for students across the city.
This summer, Lexi Garica ’26 joined the Midori & Friends team as an intern, and helped further the mission of the organization.
Garcia is a music production major at Elon, and was excited for the opportunity to learn more about the managerial and musical aspects of her job as a programming intern.
Within her role, Garcia worked with the five programs run by Midori & Friends for children of different ages, specifically NEXTGen Musician.
According to the Midori & Friends website, NEXTGen is a teen leadership program that allows students to advocate for music education.
“I did something similar in high school,” Garcia said. “It was cool to be on the other side.”
Garcia also worked with the Celebrate! Music program, which provides in-school concerts for students in kindergarten through 12th grade.
While attending one of these events, Garcia looked around the room at the students in attendance, and their excitement at having a performance at their school, and a wave of emotion washed over her.
“I thought about how grateful I was to have music at that age,” Garcia said. “Music literally shaped my life, and I’m so glad that these kids get to experience that too because of Midori & Friends.”
Bunny Ingram ’26 interned alongside Garcia at Midori & Friends and worked as a marketing intern for the nonprofit.
Ingram is majoring in data analytics, but wanted the opportunity to explore their minors in art, interreligious studies and Asian studies through their internship with Study USA. With their internship at Midori & Friends, Ingram was able to achieve that goal as a marketing intern.
In their role, Ingram made marketing materials to promote Midori & Friends, and got to work firsthand with the students the nonprofit aims to help, by working for a week at one of the summer programs they offer.
Ingram said that it was extremely fulfilling to see the impact they were making through her work with Midori & friends while working with the summer program.
“I was a broke kid. I didn’t have the money for an instrument, but there was a program like [Midori & Friends] in my hometown, and that’s how I got into music,” Ingram said.
At the end of their internships, both Ingram and Garcia accepted offers to stay on in part-time positions at Midori & Friends while they finish their final year at Elon.
Charlotte
In Charlotte, three Study USA students made their mark through their experiences interning at nonprofits in the city.
For Katie Strohl ’26, the internship she did through Study USA was her first, but she was excited to have the opportunity to work with and learn more about Special Olympics North Carolina and to gain experience at a nonprofit.
Strohl was interested in taking on her first internship through Study USA because of the help the program and the Student Professional Development Center (SPDC) provide with the internship search process.
“They do resume drops to certain companies in Charlotte, and that’s actually how Special Olympics reached out to me in the first place,” Strohl said.
Special Olympics NC is a branch of the Special Olympics, a program aimed at getting individuals with intellectual disabilities involved in physical activity. According to the Special Olympics NC website, it is one of the largest Special Olympics programs in the world.
At Special Olympics NC, Strohl served as a Mecklenburg County intern and focused on events and issues within the Charlotte area.
One of Strohl’s projects during her internship was researching athlete transportation with the goal of solving problems athletes faced traveling to and from events.
“A lot of athletes were having trouble getting back and forth from events,” Strohl said. “We wanted to find a way to make it easier for them.”
Strohl worked within the organization to try to establish a transportation position on the volunteer committee to ensure that there was a person in power who could help address and resolve these issues. Strohl also got to take the lead and plan a kickball event with her fellow interns. At the event Strohl played kickball with the athletes and saw where and to whom her hard work had been going all summer.
“Seeing something that you planned work out is the coolest thing,” Strohl said. “It was a very rewarding experience.”
Charlotte is also home to Make-A-Wish Central and Western North Carolina, a nonprofit that makes wishes into a reality for children with critical illnesses.
Students Vinny Weinkam ’26 and Garek Johnson ’26 both worked with the nonprofit as development interns.
Johnson, an accounting major, and Weinkam, a finance major, were involved in donor outreach. They created flyers, emails and other promotional materials to encourage people to donate and help fund children’s wishes.
“I want to do accounting, but not for a ‘big four’ company,” Johnson said. “I want to do something more meaningful, and this experience helped me do that.”
Weinkam also took the initiative to help the nonprofit improve with its invoice system through research and upgrading the spreadsheet it was housed on.
“I learned that it’s important to be extra proactive,” Weinkam said.
Both Johnson and Weinkam also got to sit in on monthly meetings where the team at Make-A-Wish went over the wishes they had recently granted.
“It was nice to see in real time where the things I was doing were going.” Johnson said.
To learn more about Study USA Charlotte, Study USA New York and other Study USA programs, check out the Study USA website. To learn more about the Elon Charlotte campus, check out the National Campus Programs website.