Internships: Emma’s Torch
Location: New York City 
Program: Princeton RISE (Recognizing Inequities and Standing for Equality)
Major: Economics
Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia

Why did you choose your internship? 

Emma’s Torch is a nonprofit, social enterprise with a mission to train refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking in the culinary arts and to empower them to build meaningful careers in the culinary industry.

I chose Emma’s Torch for three main reasons.

The first is that I came into Princeton knowing that, immediately after college, I would probably work in finance. I spent last summer working in venture capital, and I have accepted an offer for next summer working in sales and trading on Wall Street. I found myself with a unique opportunity to try something new this summer, something that I had always been curious about, without having to alter my career plan, and Emma’s Torch as an organization really spoke to me as what that new opportunity could be.

Second, I found that the Emma’s Torch mission was not too lofty, such as ending world hunger or enacting world peace, which I feel is often the bane of many nonprofits. Instead, Emma’s Torch had a practical, easy-to-see approach to impacting real lives, as well as the broader surrounding community.

Our program is paid, allowing newly-arrived forced migrants with work authorization a real opportunity, and, in the 11-week training program, refugees gain knowledge on traditional American recipes, the basics that would help them in almost any kitchen, their ServSafe Food Handler certifications, and hands-on experience working in our cafe. Finally, the team at Emma’s Torch assists students with job applications and connects them with referral partners, actively ensuring that program participants leave with full-time employment. You can step-by-step see that donations to Emma’s Torch and the energy put into the operation is making a difference.

Lastly, I chose Emma’s Torch because I truly share their vision statement: Our vision is a country where refugees are welcomed as drivers of the economy and enhancers of their communities. That is, a world in which refugees who have experienced forced migration will no longer be viewed as and forced to be recipients of aid, but rather drivers of our economy within our lifetime.

What skills have you learned or developed? 

I believe that many of the skills I developed are not easily measured or named, as many revolve around expanding my own perspectives, knowledge of the nonprofit sector, and how to interact with and teach people from widely different cultures with language barriers in the way.

To name one example, I was given the chance to work one-on-one with students on job applications. I got to help one student apply to more than 20 jobs, walk him through an online interview, send him off for multiple in-person interviews, and then learn that he got not one, but two job offers! He has since started working and reported to Emma’s Torch that he very much loves his new job.

Beyond these harder to name skills, I worked on a variety of projects throughout my eight week internship, through which I learned so much.

I helped research grants that Emma’s Torch could apply to, and I learned about finding and sourcing grants, as well as the grant application process for nonprofits. I researched methods of impact reporting and learned so much about what funders look for in an organization, what social return on investment is and how to calculate it, and I even presented my findings to the entire data team during one of our monthly meetings.

I helped take photos and videos, producing content for social media, and I did outreach to food influencers to help get the word out about the D.C. cafe.

I also created a resource guide for students who come to the instructors at Emma’s Torch with other issues that are unfortunately prevalent among the refugee community, such as case management, legal issues, ESL practice, childcare, healthcare and more.

Even through helping with random administrative tasks, such as processing invoices and transferring catering leads from one system to another, I learned new programs and systems and got to interact with different team members.

I am so grateful for the chance to contribute to all of these projects and more, as I would never have gained as holistic an understanding of the organization nor my numerous, new perspectives if it had been any other way. 

How do you think this opportunity will impact your career path, future goals and/or academic path at Princeton? 

Never, in my many other internships in newsrooms, doing corporate law, or working as a venture capital analyst, have I worked in an office where at least twice a week I would hear, “I love my job! I cannot even imagine wanting to leave or work somewhere else.”

Despite the many–and there are many–challenges of working in the nonprofit sector and towards lofty goals for the future of forced migrants in America, Emma’s Torch is an amazing organization and an amazing place to work.

Before this summer, I had, in all honesty, never considered working in the nonprofit realm, yet I enjoyed every second of my internship. In one of our final meetings, my RISE cohort leader asked us if, after each of us doing so, any of us felt like we could see ourselves working at a nonprofit in the future. I surprised myself with my answer: I am significantly more likely to work at a nonprofit, particularly one similar to Emma’s Torch, than I was before this summer.

I am so grateful to the Princeton RISE program and to Emma’s Torch for my experience this summer. 

What has been most memorable for you? 

My most memorable moment from the summer was definitely when Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his team came to visit Emma’s Torch’s small D.C. operation on World Refugee Day. There are any number of organizations that the state department could have chosen to highlight, and, for me, the visit really confirmed the amazing impact that the Emma’s Torch team was making.

From a marketing standpoint, the exposure that the promotional content put out by Secretary Blinken and the State Department gave Emma’s Torch will do wonders for the organization.

Moreover, the students were all so excited to meet and speak with such a prominent figure, and I loved watching the program, kitchen, and instructing staff at Emma’s Torch get the recognition they deserve.