Future Leaders: “We don’t write people off”

Summer Internships: Training Future Leaders

Students across the country have returned to school. They’re grappling with the concepts being taught to them but also the question, ‘what is next for me?’

Each summer, students from across the country intern with OJPC. They help our clients, and through their work, we help train them as future leaders for fair, intelligent, redemptive justice. We wish to say thank you to our last group of amazing summer students. And what better way to celebrate them than sharing their insight? You can find their reflections on their summer at OJPC below. Taken together, their reflections on their collaboration with each other, OJPC staff, and clients capture the spirit of our work: we don’t write people off.

Read their reflections below

Molly Bunke: “Though I had heard so many great things about her beforehand, I was still unprepared for just how wonderful her spirit was…”

Daniel Cull: “It’s easy to say these things as platitudes, but it becomes so much more real when these simple things are actively lived.”

Sherry Porter: “The experiences and skills I gained at OJPC will be invaluable to the women and men I serve in the future.”

Maria Raciti: “Everyone that I have encountered while at OJPC—be it staff members, fellow interns, returning citizens, victims of sex trafficking, etc.—gives me hope.”

Kellan Robinson: “This summer, I had a front seat view of how justice works.”

Kathryn Schwaeble: “I have seen the impact that a group of like-minded people coming together for a cause can achieve.”

Maximillian Schneider: “I know the knowledge I have gained at OJPC will be with me forever, wherever I go.”

Ashton Tucker: “The law acknowledges that many people, mostly women and girls, who find themselves in the sex trade are there through force and manipulation. . . . [V]ictims of sex trafficking should be supported rather than criminalized.”

Natalie Weber: “[A] person is so much more than a criminal record.”