April Bynum

Student

“I told my mom, ‘You know, I really don’t know what I would have done this summer without the Community Internship Program.’”

“It was a great summer,” says April Bynum of her SMC summer internship that placed her in the Saturn Elementary School. “This was my first time going to summer school, which was something I had to adjust to. But once I got into it, it was no problem.” April worked with fifth graders and kindergartners and reports that she never ran out of work to be done. “When I first arrived, I was tutoring the older kids in math and spelling, and then I transferred to the kindergarten classes,” she says. “I helped them with their ABC’s and 1,2,3’s and writing their names. And, of course, we played a lot.”

April, who plans to transfer to University of Nevada, Las Vegas, got to know the people of Saturn Elementary quite well during her internship. “I think they really enjoyed having us there because we were able to spend a lot of time with the kids, and the school really needs a lot of help. The whole SMC program was great because it got us involved with the younger generation. I think, overall, that we really got to make a difference.”

April is studying Business Administration and admits to feeling a certain amount of “family pressure” to excel. “My mom and dad are both college graduates, so I’ve always been pushed to graduate myself,” she says. “Education has always been important to my family.” And April feels that part of her “family” is now the extended branch she spent the summer with at Saturn Elementary.

“I’ll remember the times when kids fell and scraped their legs, and I had to carry them to the nurse,” recalls April. “And the last time I saw the vice principal, she told me to come back to visit. And then she said, ‘We’re really going to miss you guys.’”

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