This summer, Bastrop County Cares (BCC) had the opportunity to invest in the next generation of community leaders through our Community Impact Fellowship Program.
Our fellows, Giselle Rodriguez-Olea and Andres, brought different interests, skills, and perspectives to BCC while sharing a common goal: gaining meaningful professional experience while contributing to their community. Their experiences demonstrate an important lesson about nonprofit and community work: impact happens both on the front lines and behind the scenes.
Turning Creativity into Community Connection
During her fellowship, Giselle focused on communications and design, helping BCC develop flyers, brochures, and resource materials that strengthened the organization’s ability to communicate programs and resources to residents. Through these projects, Giselle gained hands-on professional experience while seeing how effective communication can help connect families with opportunities, information, and services. Her fellowship also provided opportunities to participate in BCC activities, engage with staff, and better understand how collaboration contributes to community impact. Her experience demonstrated that young people do not have to wait until after graduation to begin making a difference. With mentorship, meaningful projects, and opportunities to participate, students can contribute valuable ideas and talents while developing skills that will support their future educational and career goals.
Building the Systems Behind Community Impact
Andres approached his fellowship from another important perspective: nonprofit administration and human resources.
Having previously completed a social work practicum with BCC, Andres chose to return because of the organization’s commitment to the community and the impact he had witnessed firsthand. He shared that the combination of genuine care and tangible results made him want to return and become more deeply involved.
With nonprofit administration among his long-term career goals, Andres spent the summer working closely with BCC’s Human Resources Director, Veronika, to strengthen filing and documentation systems while learning about compliance and day-to-day nonprofit people operations. The experience gave him a greater understanding of the operational work that often happens behind the scenes but is essential to a strong nonprofit organization.
Andres identified attention to detail, understanding compliance, and effectively researching compliance requirements as three of his most important areas of growth. His experience also reinforced his interest in combining his social work background with administrative and operational skills as he considers his future career.
One of his most meaningful moments came during an audit when staff needed to locate a specific document from several years earlier. Because the records had been maintained and organized, the document could be located almost immediately. For Andres, that moment demonstrated the importance of the refiling project and the value of maintaining strong organizational systems. Although his responsibilities were not focused on direct service, Andres recognized their connection to BCC’s larger mission. Strong administrative systems help frontline staff remain focused on serving residents and allow nonprofit organizations to sustain their community impact over time.
Different Roles. One Community Mission.
Giselle and Andres’s experiences illustrate the many ways young people can contribute to community change.
One fellow used communications and creativity to help connect residents with information and resources. Another strengthened the administrative infrastructure that allows a nonprofit organization to operate effectively and sustainably.
Both are essential.
At BCC, we believe internships should be more than completing assigned tasks or adding another experience to a résumé. They should give young people opportunities to discover their strengths, develop professional skills, build relationships, explore career pathways, and understand how their talents can contribute to something larger than themselves. Andres summarized that experience by describing BCC as an organization that strengthens the community it serves while also genuinely investing in the growth of the interns who pass through it.
Growing Our Own: Why Local Internships Matter
For BCC Executive Director Norma Mercado, providing meaningful internship opportunities is also an important strategy for investing in Bastrop County’s future. “During my time as a social worker in a local school district, I worked closely with students facing significant challenges. One thing I noticed was that many of our young people did not always see themselves or their future in the community where they were growing up. Too often, their aspirations centered on finding a way to leave rather than imagining the opportunities they could create right here at home.
Internships like the Community Impact Fellowship can help change that. They give young people an opportunity to see themselves as part of their community’s future, to discover their strengths, develop professional skills, build relationships with local leaders, and expand their aspirations.
When we intentionally invest in our youth and give them meaningful opportunities to learn and lead in their own community, we are not only developing their potential, we are growing our own future workforce, leaders, and changemakers right here in Bastrop County.”
— Norma Mercado, Executive Director, Bastrop County Cares.
This philosophy is at the heart of BCC’s approach to internships. When young people are invited into professional spaces, trusted with meaningful responsibilities, connected with mentors, and given opportunities to contribute, they begin to see that there is a place for their talents and leadership in their own community. The benefits extend beyond the individual student. Developing local talent helps strengthen the community’s future workforce, creates pathways into nonprofit and community leadership, and builds a generation of young people who understand both the challenges and possibilities of the place they call home.
An Invitation to Local Students
BCC wants to continue creating meaningful opportunities for high school and college students interested in internships, fellowships, and community-based learning experiences. Whether a student’s interests are in social work, communications, public health, nonprofit administration, human resources, education, community engagement, data, technology, or other areas, BCC wants young people to have opportunities to explore how their skills and interests can contribute to their community. Andres’s advice to future interns is especially relevant: don’t underestimate the importance of behind-the-scenes work, and take every opportunity to learn from the staff around you.
The Community Impact Fellowship is ultimately about more than a summer internship. It is about creating a pathway for young people to learn here, contribute here, build relationships here, and begin to imagine a future here. When we invest in our young people, we invest in Bastrop County’s future. We don’t just prepare the next generation for opportunities, we help them discover that some of those opportunities can be created right here at home.
