The Good Neighbors Internship Program

We invite college students to become part of our community for a summer of work, fellowship, personal growth and transformation as you help us serve 100 elementary school children in the Good Neighbors Summer Day Camp at Smith Mountain Lake Virginia. The children you will serve  are those who receive free or reduced-price school lunches during the school year but do not get these lunches during the summer. Preference is also given to children who need assistance with reading skills. In addition to reading and feeding, the Good Neighbors Curriculum, a values-based curriculum, emphasizes values such as nonviolence, accepting diversity, compassion, honesty and integrity. These values are at the heart of all camp activities and are modeled by all of us working with the children.

One of our stated objectives is: to provide opportunities for leadership training and vocational exploration for young adults through service-learning Internships.

If you are drawn to working with children, teaching or serving children at risk, you should contact us. If you are drawn to life in community with other Interns, you should contact us. If you are drawn to an experience that connects churches, civic organizations and schools through efforts to serve children, you should contact us. If you are drawn to an experience of shared life in community with children, their families, young adults and compassionate volunteers, you should contact us.

If you are an Intern in the Good Neighbors family, you will:

1. Be one of the Camp Site coordinators
2. Be one of the principal facilitators/teachers of the Good Neighbors curriculum
3. Train and supervise the volunteers
4. Live with other interns in a lovely cabin with a pond on a wooded, 150 acre farm
5. Work closely with the Program Director and Intern Coordinator on a daily basis
6. Have shared evening meals and fellowship with volunteers at area churches
7. Have days that begin early and end late
8. Receive room and board plus a stipend of $2000
9. Spend 10 weeks of exhausting, fulfilling work that may change your worldview and transform your life