College students to spend summer interning in AGE to age and Assisted Living Communities

Internship program expands to add opportunities in Northland Village locations along with AGE to age sites

 

For the third year in a row, area college students will spend their summer enhancing community connectedness in rural northeastern Minnesota.

The Northland Foundation's KIDS PLUS Program, with  funding partner support, is helping rural communities to engage college students in paid internships. A total of 17 students will serve in 9 sites with the KIDS PLUS Initiative, AGE to age: bringing generations together.

New to the internship efforts this year: Northland Assisted Living, the Foundation's philanthropic investment in housing-with-services for older adults, will also benefit from the talents of college students. Three interns will work at Northland Village in McGregor and Hoyt Lakes. Their focus will mainly be on resident wellbeing and community interaction.

“The summer interns will infuse fresh ideas and energy to benefit people of all ages in rural communities in our region.”
—Lynn Haglin, Vice President/KIDS PLUS Director

Resources for the summer program are provided by grant awards from the Otto Bremer Foundation and the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation, along with funding from the Northland Foundation’s Rural Aging Initiative.

“Our AGE to age communities have had extremely positive feedback about the opportunity to engage college interns, and the students have reported that interning truly impacted their lives and career directions,” said Lynn Haglin, Vice President/KIDS PLUS Director at the Northland Foundation.

“We are thrilled to not only be able to continue the program but also extend it to our assisted living sites,” Haglin added.

All the students and their supervisors attended a training session on June 11th. They will reconvene in August to share their experiences and insights at an evaluation/celebration session.