I have to take a minute to give some much-deserved recognition to Texas Impact's interns. As a small nonprofit, Texas Impact--like our colleague organizations--relies on interns to help accomplish our work. Texas Impact's interns come from a variety of faith and educational backgrounds. I feel so fortunate to have the opportunity to work with the gifted, committed young people who come into our internship program, and I'm delighted to have the chance to tell you about our two interns this summer, Aiman Janmohamed and Shelby Wardlaw. They both got submissions printed in the Austin American-Statesman this week, so I thought this would be a good time to highlight their work and provide links to their respective pieces.

Aiman Janmohamed is about to start her second year at the UT School of Social Work. She first came to Texas Impact while she was in undergrad, and we are lucky that she has stayed on with us as her class schedule permits. Aiman has spent the summer working on Texas Impact's health care resources for faith communities, a project she will continue to work on this fall.

Aiman is very committed to bringing her faith to bear in her work in public policy, and in July she attended a conference for young Muslim leaders in Washington, D.C. Her reflection on her experience in D.C. appeared in today's Austin American-Statesman HERE

Shelby Wardlaw just finished her freshman year at Vassar College. She has spent the summer as our Texas Interfaith Power & Light intern. Shelby has coordinated the Cool Cities training to be held August 4 in Georgetown, as well as rounding up Austin-area congregations to participate in Austin Energy's Kill-a-Watt contest.

Shelby got some media recently, too--a letter to the editor of the Austin American-Statesman on energy efficiency for congregations, which you can read HERE

Texas Impact is always looking for students who would like to work on specific policy issues or who want to explore the intersection of faith and public policy. Contact me at bee@texasimpact.org if you or someone you know is interested!