As part of the Side Gigs for Good series, Penn Today highlights staff who spend time outside their work hours giving back to Philadelphia organizations.
2 min. read
Penn staff members Candace Adams with foster cat Black Pearl (top left); JJ Ahern in the University Archives and Records Center (top right); Sherry Caputo on Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation land in New Jersey (bottom left); and Meryl Krieger.
(Images: Courtesy of Candace Adams (top left); Courtesy of Sherry Caputo (bottom left); Eric Sucar)
Many Penn faculty, staff, and students give back to communities in Philadelphia and around the globe through their research and extracurricular involvement. Through the Side Gigs for Good series, started in 2019, Penn Today has also highlighted the volunteer work that members of the Penn community do outside of their day jobs.
This roundup of recent stories features an archivist who curated an exhibition on the history of the U.S. Navy, a Penn Medicine nurse manager providing health education to the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, a College of Liberal & Professional Studies instructional designer helping creative teens with entrepreneurial and life skills, and an Institutional Review Board analyst who fosters cats and dogs.
Penn archivist J.J. Ahern has been putting his professional experience and personal passion for the past to work as a volunteer for the Navy’s 250th anniversary curating an exhibition about the human side of the service’s history.
Outside of her day job as a nurse manager for Penn Medicine at Home, Sherry “Strong Sun Spirit” Caputo has helped bring mental health education, COVID resources, and nutrition programming to her tribal community, the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation in New Jersey.
As a volunteer with the nonprofit after-school program Project 440, Meryl Krieger, a senior learning designer for the College of Liberal & Professional Studies, helps artistically minded high school students with life skills.
Outside of her day job at Penn’s Institutional Review Board, Candace Adams works with different organizations in Philadelphia to give temporary shelter and care to cats and dogs.
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