A $32,500 grant from Cleveland’s Abington Foundation set the stage for seven Oberlin students and three recent graduates to put their liberal arts skills into practice this summer by serving as full-time interns at a variety of professional sites throughout Cuyahoga and Lorain counties. The grant also supported two internships in summer 2007 and two during winter term 2008.

The Abington Foundation supports organizations that promote community health, welfare, and education, primarily in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Six of the internships supported by the Abington Foundation grant are helping students develop entrepreneurial skills by giving them the opportunity to learn how organizations are developed and operated.

These activities are supporting the College's initiative on entrepreneurship, Creativity & Leadership (http://www.oberlin.edu/creativity/), launched with grants from the Burton D. Morgan Foundation and Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Funding from the Abington Foundation significantly expanded the number of northeast Ohio internship opportunities available to Oberlin students.

Lora DiFranco ’08 is focused on developing her entrepreneurial skills at the GreenCityBlueLake Institute at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. The environmental studies major is conducting an inventory of campus sustainability initiatives in Northeast Ohio.

 “Meeting area students and administrators who are dedicated to making their campuses climate neutral,” she says, “has made me feel a lot more connected to the campus environmental movement throughout our region.”

DiFranco also used what she learned while interning with Oberlin's Office of Environmental Sustainability to create a toolkit and a list of the most effective steps Northeast Ohio colleges and universities can take to improve their sustainability efforts.

Katrina Forman ’11 is teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) with the Immigrant Workers Project (IWP), a nonprofit organization that provides ESL lessons, and other services for Ohio migrant workers. She also is helping to provide ongoing support for a strike by members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union in Winesburg, Ohio.

“My experience with IWP has given me insight into the realities of nonprofit organizations,” Forman points out, “and allowed me to see beyond immigration rhetoric and into the actual legal processes behind the law as well as the impact both immigration and deportation have on all residents of Lorain County and Ohio.”

“I’m very interested in the engineering and producing side of the music industry,” says violin performance major Garrett Openshaw ’10.” He is working at Ante-Up Audio, a recording studio in Cleveland, where he maintains the studio space, does preliminary editing and initial preparation of sound tracks, and observes the engineers as they work with clients.

 “The owner is a multi-platinum-winning producer and engineer and his colleagues also have had many years of experience,” he says, “so I learn something new every day, particularly inside information about the music industry, which will help me as a musician and as an engineer.”

Other summer 2008 Abington interns include Robert Chester ’10, with the Cleveland law firm Roetzel & Andress; Dominique Hughes ’11 with Save Our Children; and Thao Phan ’11 with Family Planning Services, both in Elyria. Interning in Oberlin are Vanentin Rusu ’08 and Robert Hartley ’08 at Nanotech Innovations, and Chloe Helene Robinson ’08 at Credo Music Camp. Noah Weiss ’09 is an intern with Telarc International in Beachwood.