Edwin Lapp, COL ’28, Philadelphia, PA
This summer, thanks to the support I received from UPenn’s Career Services, I’ve had the opportunity to work full time at the Nationalities Service Center (NSC) here in Philadelphia as part of their Youth Wellness Team. Beginning just days after the end of classes in May and continuing up till the very start of the Fall semester, my work at NSC occupied my entire summer. The position gave me the opportunity to work directly with clients on multiple projects, discuss careers in public service with NSC staff across various roles, get to know my own city in a new way, and better understand the severity of this moment for immigrants in the US.
NSC, one of the largest refugee resettlement agencies in Philadelphia, has served the region’s immigrant community for more than a hundred years providing clients with legal representation and counsel, health and wellness support, educational resources, employment assistance, and language accessibility services. In that long history of service, navigating the shifting tides of politically charged immigration policy is nothing new. But the Trump administration’s indefinite freeze on refugee admissions and relentless attacks on immigrants have created a uniquely awful moment for NSC and clients they serve. The millions of federal dollars NSC saw slashed from their budget this year alongside the sudden termination of all resettlement programs left the organization reeling. Despite these obstacles, NSC has rallied to provide continued services to clients already here in the US and worked to reorganize programming to best meet the needs of the moment.
For the duration of the summer, most of my work focused on the GROW Together program as part of the Youth Wellness Team. GROW Together, a federally funded program partnering with the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI), is a workshop series for immigrant youth in the US providing information about self-care practices, financial wellbeing, career exploration, and higher education. My work involved all aspects of the program, including outreach and onboarding of new clients, facilitating weekly workshops, conducting needs assessments and service referrals, and managing case closure. I taught workshops in both English and Spanish and used language line to work with Ukrainian, Dari, and French speaking clients. I taught my largest GROW Together workshop series as part of a summer program for students at Furness High School in South Philly which lasted most of the summer.
In July, my work took a significant shift after my supervisors received word from USCRI that the GROW Together program would be terminated due to cuts in federal funding. Given less than 2 months to cease all operations, the Wellness Team began a mad rush to complete all active workshops series and graduate as many clients from the program as possible. My initial intention was to finish my internship near the end of July, but with everyone working hard to close out the program, I chose to stay on through August. I took on the internly duty of organizing hundreds of case files of present and past GROW Together clients and updating their information in our systems. At times it could feel like tedious work compared with my other responsibilities, but I sure got good handling a manila folder!
Much of my internship was far from pleasant. It’s heartbreaking to have so little to offer so many clients, especially those without legal status. Delivering the news of a program closing never feels good, especially when the referral options for alternative services are so limited. During outreach to new clients, I sometimes struggled to get past people’s suspicion of an organization claiming to want to help. People are scared, and that fear is so widespread that it can keep them from connecting with the few institutions that still exist to support them.
And yet, amid all this uncertainty and chaos, it’s been inspiring to witness the work NSC continues to do. The directors and staff I met during my internship do what they do because they genuinely believe in the work. For two months, I watched my direct coworkers come in day after day (fully aware they were likely just weeks away from losing their jobs) to finish a project that matters to them. That kind of commitment moved me and is something I hope to find in my eventual career.
I’m grateful for the opportunity I had to intern at NSC this summer, and I deeply appreciate the support from Career Services that made it possible. As I enter my second year at Penn, I’ll continue exploring various areas of interest, but this internship has strengthened my commitment to public service and broadened my interest in immigration policy.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2025 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
