2021 Cohort

I spent my summer listening to children scream for hours on end and riding the train home covered head to toe in paint. And it was the most inspiring experience I have ever had. The Leaders of Today Peace Academy, run by the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, is a community youth program with after-school programming […]

For our field trip during our week of learning about poverty and homelessness, we went to A Bed for Every Child, an organization where you can volunteer to build a bed for a child in need. When we got there, I was excited to get to work with my fellow Teen JUST-US’ers. I knew that […]

During my summer at Teen JUST-US, I’ve been working at Doc Wayne Youth Services.  Their mission fuses sports and therapy to break down stigmas surrounding mental health and treat children and teens who are managing a mental health need as a result of trauma. Twenty percent of all children live with a mental health challenge, […]

My favorite field trip was when we went to the Mystic River to pull out invasive species. Any time a field trip was announced, I knew it was going to be good, but I had an extra good feeling about this particular field trip. The bus smelled of sunscreen and excitement. All we knew was […]

Learning about the Justice System I was very nervous and having second thoughts throughout the week leading up to Teen JUST-US. By the end of day one, however, I was delighted to have been chosen for the program. I felt that my supervisor wasn’t just really nice, but really understood and cared about me. My […]

When I was sitting down to write this, I wondered what would be a good thing to write about. There were so many fun and interesting moments where I connected with my peers in the cohort. The moment I chose is the moment the program started, not the first day of my internship at Massachusetts […]

Problem Solving My Way Through the Summer: A somewhat satirical but completely genuine reflection As a high school student, the majority of “data analysis” and “problem solving” I’ve experienced has been generated from biology class and calculating my grades. In my sheltered student bubble, I had convinced myself that I was a connoisseur in all-things […]

You ever been smacked over the head with a revelation? Like, you are one way your whole life and then one thing happens and BAM! You are changed forever? That happened to me about a year ago when I listened to this NPR podcast on a walk around the reservoir. The thesis of this episode […]

What does rowing have to do with ableism and disability rights? This question ran through my head for the entire duration of the bus ride to Community Rowing Inc., or CRI. We settled in on some benches once we got there, waiting for the speakers to begin. All of our eyes followed as two 6-foot […]

It was Monday, June 28, 2021, more specifically, day one of the Teen JUST-US internship, even more specifically, the first day at my individual organization, Community Action Works.  My friends, family, and pretty much anybody who has ever been in my presence, knows how anxious and nervous I am, and the way that self-doubt often […]

Over the past summer, I have had the wonderful experience of working as an intern at Partnership in Education and Resilience (PEAR). My interning experience has taught me so much about the professional world and has helped me find my voice. Before starting my internship, I felt very intimidated by the idea of working with […]

My internship experience through Teen JUST-US taught me skills for being successful in the workplace. Before my internship with YW Boston, I believed that work success happened when one had the education, opportunity, and skills to do a specific job well. And that is a big part of it. But now I know that a […]

Dancing Around the Room One Friday morning, in an over-air conditioned, under-decorated basement of a temple where I wasn’t a member, I danced around the room in a circle of seventeen teenagers I had been with for just six days. I had gotten there early that day, and I had decided that I was going […]

I have never liked tomatoes. Raw tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes on pizza, tomato sauce, anything with tomatoes I have always found absolutely disgusting. But this summer, I learned how tomatoes, a food enemy of mine, could make me a more productive employee and bring people together. Each day of my internship, my supervisor set up […]

I came in on the first cohort day freaking out because I only sort of knew one person. I got to Temple Israel extra early. There were just a few other people in the room, so I took a seat by myself at a table in the back. Slowly, people started to trickle in, and […]

Odd as it may sound, the most impactful part of my time at Teen JUST-US was, by far, the first day of interning. Despite the thorough and informative emails my supervisor sent ahead of time, I felt a dizzying amalgam of apprehensiveness, anxiety, and excitement. After walking into the cozy office space of Massachusetts Rivers […]

When talking about our experiences we often think of them in sights and smells, locations, events that happened, or people we talked to. What doesn’t come up quite as often is our memory of the sounds we hear in the spaces we inhabit. One of the sounds that marked a cohort day in Teen JUST-US […]