Over the course of the summer, third-year Liani Castro-Torres could be found wrangling energetic kids at Hyde Park Neighborhood Club’s summer camps—organizing field trips, calming nerves before rock climbing adventures, and ensuring buses arrived on time. These hands-on experiences offered her not only a deeper understanding of complex community needs but also valuable insights into the behind-the-scenes work and operational realities that keep a community program running smoothly. “ They’re teaching me the skills of how to run a summer camp. How to manage it, how to roster it, how to make sure registration is okay, how to make payments—but also how to manage the kids,” she said.
Castro-Torres, a public policy major, sought out the University Community Service Center’s Summer Links program, which connects UChicago students to local community organizations, because of her conviction that real change happens at the neighborhood level.
Before diving into their internships, Summer Links students receive a week of training on Chicago’s civic landscape, preparing them for placements in organizations focused on education, advocacy, arts, public health, and environmental justice. Throughout the rest of the summer, students spend their weekdays immersed in community work and, on Fridays, gather with their cohort to share experiences, explore different neighborhoods, and learn directly from Chicagoans working on the front lines of social change.
"We want to open their eyes to the possibility of a career on the ground with people," explains Nick Currie, director of the University Community Service Center, which was founded by Michelle Obama in 1996. “The program is really focused on immersing them in that world of service.”
Tapping local knowledge
For Castro-Torres, the hands-on work provided what her classroom learning couldn't: a chance to see how policy theories translate into daily practice in Chicago neighborhoods and an opportunity to connect with local neighborhoods and the city she now thinks of as a second home.
“ I think the public policy program at [UChicago] is very macro-level. For me, it was great to go to that micro-level,” said Castro-Torres. “How does a specific policy—even if it's just the district's policy on education—interact and play within this community?”
As an Out-of-School Time Coordinator at Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, an organization serving community families, she discovered those interactions everywhere, connecting kids with activities from rock climbing at South Chicago’s Steelworkers Park to exploring local beaches.
“ We learned how to interact with our community, and I think Hyde Park Neighborhood Club is the perfect way to do that,” said Castro-Torres. “Our outdoor explorers program—they're never in the building. Their mission aligns with exploring the neighborhood and the city.”
Tuning in and giving back
Third-year Charlie Pomper built his own community connections at the Urban Growers Collective (UGC) by supporting the Fresh Moves Mobile Market — a bus that doubles as a “produce aisle on wheels” for historically underserved communities. It also serves as a nutrition intervention center, stopping at partner sites throughout the week to improve community health through education, awareness, and accessibility.
“ The direct service that we do on our Fresh Moves mobile bus is so important—and you're really connecting with people at all points,” said Paige Tobin-Lundy, Education Program Manager at UGC. “People are coming in with high need, or looking to be directed to particular resources.”
Face-to-face interactions through the mobile market taught Pomper the value of building genuine partnerships—learning to listen first and respond to what community residents identify as their priorities.
"I really think the strength of nonprofits to accomplish their mission is intentionality and cooperation," said Pomper. "Being able to form those connections to the communities themselves—meaningful connections where everyone is motivated to accomplish the same goals and hear each other out."
Pomper's internship enriched his understanding of grassroots community work and gave him the chance to provide useful support in return by contributing to daily farm operations, connecting meaningfully with UGC’s network of community members and partners, and contributing ideas to food systems projects.
In an effort to supplement Fresh Moves’ food access and equity work, Pomper created an editable directory for local, walkable resources including food pantries, community gardens, urban farms, social services, and more information about the program’s schedule and locations.
"By working together with these different community advocates, we can meet everybody's needs without sacrificing any of our individual goals,” said Pomper. “And I think that's what's really important." This unique idea, plus the extra set of hands, have proven valuable for UGC’s day-to-day operations.
"We're a small core team, and having thoughtful partnerships like this allows us to increase capacity, especially in our busy seasons," said Tobin-Lundy. "But it also gives us the opportunity to include fresh eyes and perspectives into work that we may get used to doing in a certain way."
Building partnerships that matter
Pomper's resource directory project represents the fresh thinking he brought to UGC as well as the approach Summer Links encourages: tapping into community networks rather than bringing outside fixes to local problems.
“ We want the students to ask themselves: how can I get involved with ongoing work that has been set up to address this, instead of seeing myself as the one who has to go in and fix it and change it?” said Currie.
That philosophy also shaped Castro-Torres's experience, as she learned that meaningful community work requires collaboration, flexibility, and real-time responsiveness.
“ The day-to-day can change. One day a teacher may be out, a field trip may be canceled, and something may happen where you just have to make decisions on the spot,” she said.
Castro-Torres learned from these challenges by studying how experienced staff operated and finding ways to strengthen their efforts.
“You often forget about all the behind the scenes work when you're in the classroom. But I came to understand the work that the group leaders put into their scheduling day: helping children experience the neighborhood and learn things hands-on,” said Castro-Torres.
As Castro-Torres observed and adapted to the community environment, she became adept at reading situations and responding to student and staff needs in real time.