Drawn by their interests in art, design, and support for children in Philadelphia, two Penn students are working as interns this summer at the nonprofit ArtWell.
Natalie Cheng, a rising second-year student from Philadelphia, is focusing on communications during the internship, and Aled Dillabough, a rising fourth-year student from Fairfield, Connecticut, is working on development. Both in the College of Arts and Sciences, Cheng is planning to major in architecture with a minor in design, and Dillabough is a communications major and a fine arts minor specializing in drawing. It is a first internship for both.
“I’ve been super impressed by their excitement to contribute to ArtWell’s mission and also by the skill set that our interns have brought in. They both are driven and creative,” says Tiffany Zerby, ArtWell communications and marketing director, adding that the team appreciates “their unique gifts and the light that they bring into our organization.”
Based in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood, ArtWell provides multidisciplinary arts programming, bringing local artists to youth in underfunded schools and community settings to support social-emotional learning, healing, and social justice. Founded in 2000, ArtWell has served more than 44,800 participants through more than 400 partner organizations in the Philadelphia region. Last school year ArtWell worked with nearly 1,000 students ages 5-18 in private and public schools and community groups.
ArtWell first accepted a Penn undergraduate intern, Srinidhi Ramakrishna, in 2019 and now brings on two each summer. The 10-week internship is through the Summer Humanities Internship Program (SHIP), which provides a $5,000 award supported by the College of Arts and Sciences and administered through the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (CURF). At ArtWell the internship is hybrid, with at least one day in the office.
“We’re a smaller organization, so having them assist our team in the summer is a huge capacity-building benefit to ArtWell,” Zerby says. “We can focus on the things that they want to learn or experience, and it benefits us because what they’re working on directly relates to our mission and the things that we want to accomplish as an organization.”
The communications internship at Artwell was Cheng’s first choice. The organization was a fit for her interest in using her skills in design for a nonprofit in Philadelphia that works with children in the humanities, she says.
“I’m really glad this is my first internship. ArtWell is a very welcoming community,” Cheng says. When she started, Cheng helped set up and attended the annual art exhibition that highlights the artworks by students and Teaching Artists. She met students and their families and friends and most everyone on the ArtWell team, as well as board members and donors.
Cheng designs materials for communications and marketing. She’s been working on an ArtWell By-The-Numbers infographic with year-at-a-glance data about ArtWell’s impact that will be posted on the website, in the annual report, and in marketing materials. Cheng is planning to help work on designs incorporating this year’s theme and the nonprofit’s core values, which include imagination, healing, social justice, spirituality, love, and community.
Cheng has also been designing the cover of what they are calling the “We the Poets Journal.” ArtWell will give the journals to students in the We the Poets program so they may use them to write their own stories, thoughts, and poetry. “I want to make an impact at ArtWell with the projects I’m creating, and make sure I create a good working relationship with everyone on the team,” Cheng says.
Interested in art and design since she was young, Cheng learned a few applications in the Adobe suite of design software in high school. “I have been drawing all my life, designing whatever I can, helping my school with designing infographics,” she says.
She furthered her training on other applications in an architecture design course during her first semester at Penn. On campus Cheng works as a graphic designer at The Daily Pennsylvanian and 34th Street Magazine, as well as the student publication Unearthed Magazine.
Looking ahead, Cheng says she has become interested in working with nonprofits, even as a volunteer, because “it’s so rich and encompassing, especially in the arts.” She also wants to take more design courses at Penn.
Fellow Penn intern Dillabough says he appreciates that the organization’s team asked him what he wanted to work on during the internship, which led to the opportunity to write articles for the website’s blog. “I’ve been having a lot of fun with that because I love writing,” he says, adding that he has been researching the arts and arts education in Philadelphia for his articles, including one about marginalization in arts-related industries.
As the development intern, he also researches corporations that might become partners, as well as elected officials who could possibly offer government support. “I’ve learned some new skills around research,” he says.
Dillabough says he has been an artist since he was a young child and wanted to work in an artistic organization this summer. “I love visual art,” he says. “I read ArtWell’s mission, and I thought it really aligns with my values and it’s something that I believe is important and I’d like to help out.”
Several courses Dillabough took at Penn have been helpful this summer, he says, including art, communications, culture, and even statistics. At Penn Dillabough has been on the technical crew for the student theatrical group Bloomers Comedy and is on the board of a student club Advocates for Neurodiversity.
“It’s been really cool to learn about how nonprofit organizations operate, what goes on behind the scenes, how communication works in these spaces, what kinds of roles are needed, how people work together,” Dillabough says.
Looking ahead, Dillabough says the experience he believes will “make me less anxious and nervous about applying to new opportunities” because of the positive feedback on his work. And he was surprised at how much he likes writing for the blog. “That’s shown me that I can integrate activities that I really love, like writing, into a workplace setting without like losing my passion for it.”
“Working with the Penn CURF students definitely broadens our capacity and helps us work towards our mission,” Zerby says. “I’m grateful for the program and for the students that we’ve had the good fortune to work with.”
Case in point, Clara Papenfuse, who graduated from Penn in May and majored in communications and English, was a development intern at ArtWell last summer through SHIP, doing violence prevention research, messaging work, and grant writing. This summer Papenfuse is joining the development team full-time.
