Haverford students regularly venture off campus to nearby Ardmore, a town whose main thoroughfare of Lancaster Avenue is lined with eateries and retailers. There are plenty of options for shoppers, diners, and explorers, and this summer, Jared Turner ’19 is helping to keep it that way. With support from the Center for Career and Professional Advising (CCPA), he is interning at the Ardmore Initiative, an organization led by local business leaders that provides services and marketing to maintain a vibrant businesses district on and near Lancaster Avenue in Ardmore.

The political science major and economics minor is spending his internship meeting with members of the initiative, surveying the district and its business owners, and working on the Walk Ardmore Campaign, which supports physical amenities along Lancaster Ave to attract foot traffic. He works directly with the initiative’s executive director, Christine Vilardo, and assistant executive director, Marie Suvansin, and is enjoying the experience of supporting the nearby community.

“The internship, as a whole, provides me with a unique opportunity to acquire real-world community and economic knowledge,” said Turner, a Newton, Mass., native and outfielder for the baseball team.

On top of his assigned tasks, Turner is able to use his creativity on the job. With the initiative’s leadership, he brainstorms other ways to keep businesses thriving. He’s also working on his own project: creating a collective for all the business and civic associations in Ardmore to facilitate better communication and cohesiveness between them.

The dynamic position opened up for Turner in late February, when, with the support of the CCPA’s Whitehead Internship program, he started looking for prospective employers. After a pair of interviews, he landed the job.

“The CCPA offered a lot of assistance through in-person workshops and interview material that helped me prepare for my interviews,” he said.

Ardmore is just a close walk away from the Haverford College Apartments, where he’s living during his eight-week internship. But as he helps maintain the streets of Ardmore, his work is anything but “pedestrian.”

“Professionally, I want to find a way to blend my charismatic personality and political ambition with feasible change,” he says. “An internship with the Ardmore Initiative will help me better [understand] how you enact tangible change.”

-Michael Weber ’19

“Summer Centered” is a series exploring our students’ Center-funded summer work.