Fellow Isabella Jimenez presents about her summer as a St. Louis fellow. (Photo courtesy of Scott Allen)

A record number of St. Louis Fellows, 45 in total, held full-time internships at nonprofits around the St. Louis region this past summer. Their work culminated in the 2025 St. Louis Fellows Showcase held at the Delmar DivINe on Sept. 11, an event that celebrates their impact on the St. Louis community. 

All Fellows are undergraduates, many of whom are members of specific clusters within the Fellows program such as the Goldman Fellows, Democracy Fellows, and others. These clusters pair participants with organizations such as Alzheimer’s-focused nonprofits and LGBTQ+ ones. In addition to working at the non-profits, Fellows learned about St. Louis history through outings called “Engage STL Days” and provided aid to the tornado relief effort. 

Founded in 2008 with the Goldman Fellows, the St. Louis Fellows program has now expanded to encompass six sub-groups over its 18-year history. The program falls under the supervision of Stephanie Kurtzman, Director of the Gephardt Institute, who ensured that the program’s philosophy reflected the institute’s core beliefs. 

“It’s a values-based approach that supports students in co-creating mutually beneficial partnerships,” Kurtzman said. “Our hope is that Fellows are transformed by St. Louis, while they work alongside community leaders and organizations to support St. Louis’ continuous transformation.” 

Briannah Anderson is one such Fellow, a senior majoring in environmental analysis with a minor in anthropology. Anderson interned at Green River Environmental Law Center this summer and discovered her interest in the nonprofit sphere.  

“I think that this program is a great way for me to get that sort of career development and see how my passions for nonprofit [work] could be translated into a career,” Anderson said. “Now I’m definitely considering the nonprofit route a little bit more than I had before.”

The spring before their internships, Fellows met with community leaders throughout St. Louis. Later, they spent three days at the Todd Hall Retreat Center as a cohort. Finally, they had “Engage STL days” throughout the summer, outings that ranged from visiting the nearby Cahokia Mounds to providing tornado relief.

“Being a WashU student, sometimes it’s hard to break out of the WashU bubble,” Anderson said. “And I really thought this was a great way to see new places I haven’t been to before, and to meet community leaders and hear about their perspective [on] St. Louis.”

In line with her interest in environmental law, Anderson wrote a comment letter to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources about their draft air network monitoring plan during her internship. 

“It was different to anything I’ve done before,” Anderson said. “But I definitely thought [it] was a great experience getting familiar with legal terms and getting familiar with the Missouri environmental legislative protocols in general.”

Thirty-seven nonprofits hosted Fellows last summer. Cris Loomis, director of the Bullet Related Injury Clinic (BRIC), hosted Fellows sophomore Courtney Lucas and junior Sai Prem.

“They both brought so much life to the organization, so much just vigor, and they jumped right in,” Loomis said. “They really adopted our core values.”

BRIC provides physical, mental, and spiritual healing to people recovering from current or past bullet injuries.

“A lot of the patients we see might have bullets retained in their bodies from their previous injuries, and there is really no protocol or evidence out there that says how to take care of people with bullets in their bodies. One of the things that can happen is the lead leaches out around the bullet,” Loomis said. “We are trying to measure lead levels. So if they’re high, then we need to address it. Sai developed protocol on all of this.”

Lucas also contributed to developing this treatment protocol. He was inspired to join the St. Louis Fellows by upperclassmen who already went through the program.

“BRIC isn’t corporate at all, it is very interpersonal, and you can see that in the team and the way that we treat patients,” Lucas said. “I really wanted something like that, where I didn’t feel like I was in a corporate or business setting.”

The Gephardt Institute responded to the devastation of the May 16 tornado by clearing rubble and branches on Saturday, June 21. This was a part of the “Service Saturdays” initiative run by In Saint Louis, For Saint Louis, a commitment made by the school to serve the surrounding region. Thirty-five of the St. Louis Fellows attended the event, along with six Gephardt Institute staff members. 

“We helped set this fence back up,” Lucas said. “It was surrounding this garden in this community in northern St. Louis. It was all focused in north St. Louis, and that’s where a lot of the damage of the tornado was focused.” 

The St. Louis Fellows applications open in mid-October. Michelle Kim is a junior who interned with the Community Development Administration of St. Louis. She encouraged students of any majors to get involved in the program. 

“Don’t be afraid,” Kim said. “I know it may seem like it’s just for humanities majors, but there’s a lot of different majors, and I would say as long as you show that you have a passion, it doesn’t really matter.”