Community Partner : St . Ambrose Houisng Aid Center Intern : Eric Lynch Site Supervisor : Lindsey Henley
What is the St . Ambrose Housing Aid Center ?
The mission of St . Ambrose Housing Aid Center Inc ., is to create and maintain equal housing opportunities for low- and moderateincome people , primarily in Baltimore City , and to encourage and support strong and diverse neighborhoods .
Conducted research and composed essays analyzing housing issues in Maryland , and St . Ambrose ’ s impact for outreach and fundraising Wrote blog posts creatively covering St . Ambrose ’ s redevelopment projects in the Belair-Edison neighborhood Used pictures , pull quotes , graphics , and statistics to create social media content with Canva Assisted clients over the phone and email for community impact survey
St . Ambrose has been working with the Baltimore community for over 50 years , and it was incredibly meaningful for me to get to be a part of this history . I worked in the organization ’ s resource development department , and to me , this was the perfect place for me to learn more about how nonprofits operate . Most of my work focused on fundraising and outreach , fundamental parts of what enables a nonprofit to conduct its work . But to state it that way would be far too shallow . St . Ambrose has many different departments covering all types of housing needs , and they are each working with people in all types of neighborhoods . As a part of the resource development department , I was able to work with nearly every department . Understanding how St . Ambrose enables youth experiencing homelessness to become independent , helps distressed homeowners stay stably in their homes , and redevelops uninhabitable vacant homes was a major part of my job . Variety was the key word for my summer , as I got to jump from one housing issue to another , from meeting one department director to another , and from one project location to another . All of this helped me get a more holistic understanding of St . Ambrose , allowing me to better portray its work to potential clients and donors .
Last semester I took a class that focused on homelessness and housing instability . I found it really interesting and felt that I got a good overview of the topic . But coming and working at St . Ambrose took that to an entirely new level . The issues became far more real to me , and understanding some of the practical issues that organizations are facing on the ground was far more insightful than any single college class could be . As someone who is looking to work in the nonprofit sector , this type of hands-on experience was extremely important to me . Understanding how nonprofits function and how they are able to impact their clients has gone a long way in helping me better understand the field I ’ m going into .
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