2. Washington and Lee’s Community-Based Learning’s Summer Internship Program Reaches New Heights

Washington and Lee's Community-Based Learning's Summer Internship Program Reaches New Heights W&L's Office of Community-Based Learning sent its largest-ever internship cohort into the local community this summer.

By Kelsey Goodwin
September 16, 2025

"This summer showed me how I can use my skills to help an organization while also learning from them."

~ O'Keefe McKinney '27

This summer, Washington and Lee University's Community-Based Learning (CBL) internship program placed one of its largest cohorts ever - 10 interns - with local organizations.

Each internship placement is designed to offer mutual benefits: Local partners gain skilled, motivated support on projects while students gain hands-on experience and a deeper understanding of the Rockbridge area. The program, facilitated by Bethany Ozorak, associate director of Community-Based Learning, also had students come together as a cohort once a week for training and reflection.

"I am incredibly proud of the summer interns," Ozorak says. "They are all dedicated, intelligent and kind individuals. A highlight of my year is coordinating the CBL Summer Internship Program and supporting both student and community aspirations."

Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization

Rockbridge Area Recreation Organization (RARO), which provides recreational opportunities for all ages and interests, found itself in the middle of a technology upgrade this summer as the organization transitioned to a new recreation management software system. Business administration major, W&L football player and Lawrenceville, Georgia, native O'Keefe McKinney '27 played a crucial role in its implementation.

"He's been a great asset to our organization," Coffey says. "We're shifting to a recreation management software system that will help us be more efficient, and O'Keefe came in and has been a pivotal part of that transition, doing a lot of the grunt work as it relates to that software system. He's taken a lot of the tasks and just hit them head-on."

McKinney also rolled up his sleeves at three baseball tournaments RARO hosted in June and July, taking photographs, filling in at the concession stand and managing games.

"His willingness to get involved with something that was that visible in the community was huge," Coffey says.

For McKinney, the experience was productive and beneficial - not just for his résumé, but for his sense of place.

"It's been great getting to know people in the area," he says. "This summer showed me how I can use my skills to help an organization while also learning from them."

Lexington-Rockbridge Chamber of Commerce

Amelia Macholz '26, an economics and biochemistry double major from Richmond, Virginia, joined the Lexington-Rockbridge Chamber of Commerce team to tackle community engagement and relations, a role that allowed her to collaborate closely with chamber staff. Macholz was also instrumental in helping restart the chamber's nonprofit foundation, an organization dedicated to providing scholarships and support to local educators, by writing a new mission statement and planning events in anticipation of the foundation's relaunch. The foundation will enable the chamber to apply for a range of grants, providing greater financial and operational flexibility to support community programs and initiatives. Tracy Lyons, executive director of the chamber of commerce, says Macholz's work on the foundation was particularly instrumental.

"With only three staff, we just don't have the capacity to focus on both day-to-day and long-term projects without help like this," Lyons says.

Macholz also assisted in laying the groundwork for the chamber's Workforce Education Initiative, which will connect teachers in the Rockbridge community to site visits at local industries to learn about various careers, information they can, in turn, share with their students. This fall, the chamber will host a housing summit, for which Macholz created the logo and save-the-date announcement. She also spent her summer reaching out to the chamber's 500-plus members to update their online presences and supported various chamber events such as ribbon-cuttings and the monthly Business After Hours series. Macholz appreciates how the role blended her interests in economics and her poverty and human capability studies minor.

"Recognizing how individuals interact in a community and how all those relationships build on each other to create a beautiful, functioning community - that's what I've learned through my minor, and that was reinforced by my internship experience," she says.

"I think she's learned a lot, especially about the variety of things happening in the community that students don't often see," Lyons says. "She's been able to say, 'Wow, I didn't know this was here,' and I love that. We enjoy taking our interns everywhere and showing them all kinds of different things. That's the best part of plugging students into the community. The CBL program is so important for that reason."

Hull's Drive-In

Judy Gong '27 brought fresh ideas - and her own on-camera presence - to her marketing internship with Hull's Drive-In. She created Instagram reels that offered the account's followers a play-by-play of a night at the drive-in and filmed a taste-test of Hull's top-five concession items. Gong, a strategic communications major, also designed promotional posters for Hull's 75th anniversary concerts and events, scheduling social media posts in advance to keep audiences engaged even after her departure from her internship role, and attended Hull's monthly board meetings to ask questions about demographics and target audiences as well as offer a student's perspective on outreach.

"A lot of students have never been to a drive-in," she says. "Showing them the process makes it feel accessible."

Rhianna Schlief, Hull's executive director, says she appreciated Gong's willingness to dive into content creation for the drive-in and to share her perspective on ways to appeal to the area's college-aged population.

"It made the content entertaining to watch and relatable," Schlief says.

Gong appreciated that Hull's encouraged her autonomy and creativity in the role.

"I felt like I was in control of making my internship what I wanted it to be," Gong says, adding that Hull's was receptive to allowing her to try new ideas on their social media channels.

Rock Steady Boxing

Business administration and Chinese double major Tharun Svetanant '27 quickly became indispensable this summer at Rock Steady Boxing, an organization that offers a non-contact, boxing-inspired fitness program specifically designed for people living with Parkinson's disease. The program uses exercises adapted from boxing training such as footwork, punching combinations, balance drills and strength conditioning to help improve participants' agility, coordination, strength and overall quality of life. Classes are led by certified coaches who tailor workouts to various ability levels, fostering both physical benefits and a supportive community in which members encourage one another in their fight against Parkinson's.

Svetanant's days at the gym included leading warm-ups, holding mitts for participants and helping with balance assessments. He also researched grants to help fund the organization and proposed tweaks to the weekly workout routines, such as using the facility's adjacent spin room (Rock Steady shares space with Flex Fitness) for warm-ups.

"I love the sense of community in there," Svetanant says. "Everyone's supporting everyone. It's a great environment to be in."

Elizabeth Apperson, who serves as the program's head coach, has cultivated a roster of W&L student volunteers since Rock Steady opened in June 2024. Apperson says she held structured brainstorming sessions with Svetanant and that she often encourages students involved in the program throughout the academic year to propose new class activities, equipment uses or program enhancements. Apperson also encourages students to work out alongside participants to engender an atmosphere of camaraderie. Svetanant, a Blacksburg, Virginia, native who is also a wrestler at W&L, is now a certified assistant coach with Rock Steady, and Apperson says having him and other W&L students be a part of the program brings fresh energy to the experience of her fighters.

"They love the energy the students bring," Apperson says. "It adds a whole other dimension to the program."

City of Lexington

Diana Salazar '27, an integrated engineering and computer science double major from Bridgeport, Connecticut, spent much of her summer in front of spreadsheets for her internship with the City of Lexington, but her projects were anything but abstract. She analyzed procurement data to determine how much of the city's business went to minority- and women-owned vendors, and she built a workforce demographics profile for city staff. City Manager Tom Carroll called the work "vital."

"Diana brought the technical skills to pull it together and the perspective to see how it can inform future policy," Carroll says.

Salazar's process included reviewing years of purchase orders, coding vendors by ownership type and creating visual reports. She also sat in on city staff meetings and saw how her findings could be used in real time.

"It's been rewarding to see how something as simple as organizing data can help a city make decisions that affect everyone," she says.

Main Street Lexington

Main Street Lexington is a nonprofit organization dedicated to keeping downtown Lexington vibrant through downtown improvement projects, supporting local businesses and organizing community events. English major Daisy Barron '26 jumped into Main Street Lexington's busiest weeks of the year for her CBL internship. For the annual downtown Freedom Food Festival on July 3, she arranged decorations and double-checked vendor needs. She was also up early to help rope off streets, set up tables and hand out bags of decorations to hundreds of families the morning of the Children's Bike Parade, a beloved Fourth of July tradition.

"She was integral to helping us pull off these events," says Executive Director Jeremy Franklin '04. "We normally have three staff, but right now we have two. Having her there made a real difference."

Outside of special events, Barron helped Main Street Lexington with the behind-the-scenes work of researching grants for downtown businesses and helping design a more comprehensive volunteer program.

"We want to match our great volunteers with a really good program," Franklin says, "and Daisy's been instrumental in helping us figure out how."

Barron also partnered with Salazar on a parking assessment; the pair recently presented their findings to Lexington's City Council. Barron says her work with the organization was energizing.

"It's been great to be part of something so visible downtown while also working on projects that will last beyond the summer," Barron says.

Virginia Innovation Accelerator

Kevin Warren '26, an engineering major and computer science minor from Westfield, New Jersey, spent his summer with the Virginia Innovation Accelerator (VIA). VIA is operated by the nonprofit Advancement Foundation and serves as a business incubator and support hub for entrepreneurs and small businesses across Virginia, providing workspace, mentorship and connections to capital, helping innovators grow sustainable ventures. Warren was tasked with providing the organization with a functioning online platform that would serve as a repository for entrepreneurs in the area to post projects and connect with students, faculty and other professionals. The result of his work, Project Accelerate, is now live. Warren, who had never taken a class on web development before the internship, taught himself new coding frameworks, tested different user flows and worked closely with Advancement Foundation staff to make sure the platform's design met their needs.

Nickie Hawkins, director at VIA, supervised Warren's internship and calls him "a unicorn" for his blend of technical skills, independence and communication.

"We're a small organization and having someone who could create a tangible product that we'll actually use is huge," Hawkins says.

Warren says he was proud of the product he created and enjoyed the learning process required to make it a reality.

"It's something that showcases my skills, and it's also been about making a tangible impact in the local community," he says.

Rockbridge Outdoors

Patty Williams, director of marketing at Rockbridge Regional Tourism, worked with CBL this summer to find two interns who were excited about doing outdoor recreation trail documentation for Rockbridge Outdoors, the area's outdoor recreation initiative managed through the tourism office, and was excited to be able to bring Caterina Contreras '26 and Clara Avery '27 on board.

"We've been working on this project for over seven years, and it's a time-intensive effort," Williams says. "There are about 20-plus publicly owned trails in the community that needed to be documented with details like photos, insider tips and notes on where to get supplies and then uploaded to two different websites. For one person, just me, to take all that on with my full-time job is impossible. It really is a full-time job in itself."

Williams says the tourism office has had interns and other individuals help with the project over the years, but this is the first time she has had two people dedicated to the work for a whole summer.

"That's been hugely helpful in terms of time and resources, filling in the gaps of where we were," Williams says. "We had more raw documentation than we had actually published online, and the ultimate goal is to get everything up on the websites for locals and visitors to use. Having Clara and Catarina meant we could finally move much closer to that."

Williams says the students' tasks were split into two complementary concentrations, with Avery focusing on broader trail documentation and Contreras diving into accessibility and children's programming.

"Clara has a lot of outdoor experience - hiking, wilderness training, even first aid - so I was especially interested in her taking on some of the bigger, more remote trails," Williams says. "Cat, on the other hand, had worked with Boxerwood [Nature Center & Woodland Gardens] before and was already familiar with youth programming and accessibility. She went out with one of the Rockbridge Outdoors members who uses a wheelchair and spent time on trails figuring out the surfaces, grading and the kinds of information people with disabilities need to know. She also worked on our Kids in Parks Track Trails focusing on family-friendly sustainability and accessibility. She even blogged about her accessibility work."

For Contreras, a double major in biology and cognitive and behavioral science from El Paso, Texas, the internship was an opportunity to ensure everyone can access the beauty of Rockbridge County's outdoors. Contreras says her long-term goal is to become a genetic counselor, so her work this summer is aligned with her broader interests in health and accessibility.

"In that environment, you're working with a lot of people who have disabilities or genetically vulnerable populations," she says, "so it's nice to get some experience now with people who are living with some of those experiences currently."

She also sees her CBL internship as an extension of her commitment to Lexington itself.

"I really enjoy just working with [the community] and helping. It's something I'm very passionate about," she says. "I like it when the university is offering its services to the community."

Contreras says she especially enjoyed the days when she was out on the trails, camera in hand, a sentiment shared by Avery.

"It was super cool to see a lot of the trails in Rockbridge County," says Avery, an environmental studies major and avid hiker, "how many there were, the scope of them and how different they all are."

Growing up in Glens Falls, New York, near the Adirondacks, Avery has already completed all of New York's High Peaks hikes and was excited to check as many of Rockbridge County's hiking trails off her to-do list as possible this summer.

"Now I know all of the trails around here, which is awesome," she says, adding that her newly acquired knowledge will also help her in her role next year as key staff for W&L's Outing Club.

Williams says the students also acquired valuable practical skills during their time with Rockbridge Outdoors.

"A big takeaway for both Clara and Catarina was developing time-management skills in addition to strengthening their writing, communication and content management skills," says Williams.

Office of Community-Based Learning

The Office of Community-Based Learning itself benefited from the time and energy of a W&L intern this summer. Sandrine Uwantege '27 worked as a summer research scholar with CBL, analyzing data from a community-university relationship survey from local community members in Lexington, Buena Vista and Rockbridge County on their relationship with W&L. Her work involved interpreting quantitative survey data and presenting weekly findings to the CBL office in consultation with her research supervisors, Sascha Goluboff, director of community-based learning and professor of cultural anthropology, and Jon Eastwood, professor of sociology. Uwantege, an economics major and data science minor from Rwanda, says the opportunity to pair her interest in social impact with math and data science was "a perfect combination."

"I would also say I improved my communication skills," she adds. "Every week we had a meeting with the CBL office, and I had to present the findings and results from the analysis I was doing to people who don't work with this data on a day-to-day basis, so I had to find a new way of communicating."

"It was a pleasure to work with Sandrine," says Goluboff. "She delved deep into the materials, applying and expanding her statistical knowledge, and she provided us with a detailed report that we are excited to share with members of the Community Engagement Service Learning Committee who, in consultation with the CBL office, created and implemented the survey."

Find Out More

Learn more about the Office of Community-Based Learning and see more of CBL in action on Instagram.