My summer in a nutshell

SuitUp bridges the gap between businesses and education by bringing employees of a firm looking to create change in the world through corporate social responsibility and volunteer days to low-income students by providing them with the knowledge of career awareness  and marketable skills that can be learned through working with the experts in their fields.

Corporate volunteer activities often don’t produce any long term solutions to community problems and have low morale and participation, however many  employees claim they would like to help fix community problems and “give back”. In order to maximize the use of the skills that they’ve developed throughout their education and career they can use them to teach them to students and serve as exemplars of careers  the students are not otherwise exposed to. 

I  am here because I believe in the mission and vision of SuitUp. I believe that they are filling in holes in the way companies promote social responsibility as well as in the achievement gap between high and low-income students and this is an effective way of solving these large problems. 

Jillian Kohn is a rising senior from Evanston, Illinois majoring in Public Policy and pursuing a Certificate in Ethics & Society. She is one of seven 2018 Kenan Purpose Program Summer Fellows. Jillian is working to knit together her varied interests in the arts and using businesses to enhance social good. After a policy-oriented internship last summer in Washington, D.C., she is hoping to gain perspective on where she wants to live and how she wants to work at SuitUp, a non-profit based in New York City working to engage corporations in beneficial relationships with low-income schools.