Southwest Community Development Corporation
Title: Voyage to Victory: Summer at the Southwest Community Development Corporation (CDC)
Student Interns:
Samanvita Kolachana
University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice
Sarah Stephens
Thomas Jefferson University, College of Population Health
Grace Williamson
University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine
Academic Preceptor:
Hillary R. Bogner, MD, MSCE
University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine
Donald L. Boyer, MD, MSEd
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Johanna K.P. Greeson, PhD, MSS, MLSP
University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice
Zoë Van Orsdol, MA, MPH
Thomas Jefferson University, College of Population Health
Community Preceptor:
Melvin Draughn
Administrative Assistant, Southwest CDC
Shalese Reaves
Thomas, Group Supervisor, Southwest CDC
Shaketia Sills
Program Director, Southwest CDC
Lorraine Thomas, PhD, PGCE
Operations Manager, Southwest CDC
Community Site:
The Southwest Community Development Corporation (CDC) provides a multitude of services to the Southwest Philadelphia community, including after-school programs, summer camp, employment and workforce development, housing counseling, energy coordination, and economic development. Since its founding in 1987, it has served the Southwest Philadelphia community with a mission to improve residents’ quality of life. Southwest CDC aims to achieve this mission through preventing foreclosure and evictions, increasing homeownership, providing free after-school and summer camp programs, and much more.
Team’s Experience:
The Bridging the Gaps interns assisted by creating and teaching health and wellness lessons to 1st through 6th graders at the Southwest CDC Summer Achievers camp. Working with a different age group each day, the interns tailored weekly lesson topics to be engaging and educationally appropriate for each grade. Topics included oral health, cardiovascular and respiratory health, self-esteem and interpersonal relationships, emotional identification and regulation, nutrition, and bone health. Highlights included building working models of the lungs and heart, drawing dinner plates of nutritious foods, finding and assembling paper skeletons, and more.
Reflections
My experience at the Southwest CDC has allowed me to broaden my perspective on the need for hands-on, engaging intervention with young scholars. Our lessons with the health literacy summer program were designed to target developmental levels from first through 6th grade. We also incorporated various creative outlets to meet different learning needs. Students expressed a clear appreciation for the activities and were able to articulate what they learned and would adopt to create a healthier lifestyle. As my education and career progress, I will apply my experiences from Southwest CDC to remember the need for meeting community members where they are.
Samanvita Kolachana
Working at the Southwest CDC Summer Achievers camp was a hugely valuable experience as a public health student. I greatly appreciated the opportunity to design and implement health education activities alongside my co-interns. Over the weeks, it became clear that just our presence in the classrooms made a difference. The kids were increasingly responsive to our lessons on various aspects of health, such as balanced meals, cardiovascular health, and dental care. It was so rewarding to see how happy the groups were when we arrived for our lesson time and how they would ask when we would be coming back. I definitely learned a lot about the importance of teaching through fun and empowering the students to make their own healthy choices.
Sarah Stephens
Before this summer, I had limited experience working with the age group served at the Southwest CDC Summer Achievers camp, but I was excited to learn! At first, it was a little daunting to come up with lesson plans that would be engaging, informative, and developmentally appropriate for each grade. With the help of my co-interns, we were able to teach topics that the students were interested in learning about each week. It was so fun to watch students come out of their shells, express their curiosity, and work together towards common goals. Even if only for a short time, I am truly thankful to have experienced a summer at the Southwest CDC!
Grace Williamson
Partners
