Name: Amalia Jaimes-Lukes
Class Year: 2021
Major: Sociology
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Internship: Heritage Farm
Job Title: Intern
Location: Philadelphia
Working at Heritage Farm is my dream internship. As a sociology major, much of my interest lies in making social change and studying what positive impacts people can make to communities.
Last summer, I worked my third summer at a day camp in New York City where I was asked to help start the gardening program for the campers. Along with my supervisor, we helped cultivate a vegetable garden and ran programming for children ages 4 to 13. Growing food was not something I had too much interest in until I began tending to the garden. As the summer went on, growing vegetables and teaching kids about sustainability was all I could think about. I had a growing passion for farming and gardening and a colleague recommended I visit an urban farm in Philadelphia while visiting friends one weekend. I attended the farm’s summer event and I learned all about the incredible community outreach work they do within their neighborhood to address issues of poverty, health, and food deserts. Immediately, I knew that the following summer I wanted to work at an urban farm in Philadelphia that worked within their community to make a change. Beginning in September, I had been researching, emailing, and visiting farms all throughout Philadelphia to learn more about what they do and how they contribute to their community or neighborhood. Through that research, I found Heritage Farm, which blew me away with the programs offered and the great impact they make on participants of Methodist Services and their greater community.
As I shifted my career goals after last summer, I am now looking to focus my sociological concentration in food justice. Through my sociology major I hope to be admitted to Bryn Mawr’s 4+1 program, where I can begin taking Bryn Mawr Graduate School of Social Work classes during my senior year. With a social work degree, I can work at nonprofits like Methodist Services who help give access to resources like affordable housing, access to education, and access to fresh produce. My aspirations has shifted from being a general social worker to doing sustainability and food justice work in urban areas and food deserts because of how passionate I am about the subject.
I felt this internship would give me the opportunity to be fully immersed in the Philadelphia urban farming community, a community I would really love being a part of looking forward to a future career. It would also let me experience the reality of being an urban farmer and help me commit to the pursuit of this career.
