Age-Friendly Initiative Intern
Community Preservation And Development Corporation
Silver Spring, Maryland
After graduating from USC, I began an internship with CPDC to gain an understanding of the community development field before entering graduate school. During my time at CPDC, I worked with the senior resident populations of affordable housing developments across Washington, DC and Eastern Maryland. With the support of upper-level CPDC staff, AARP DC, and Emmaus Services for the Aging, I began a pilot program to bring Amazon Alexa technology to isolated senior residents. As the primary project manager, I signed residents up for the program, coordinated the installation of wireless internet to residents’ apartments, trained seniors to use smartphones, email and Amazon accounts, and the Amazon Alexa machine itself. I also created an evaluation program to understand the impact the Amazon had on the residents’ daily routines. In addition to the Amazon Alexa program, I conducted an evaluation of the affordable housing developments CPDC is responsible for and assessed the developments using the Age-Friendly Community Evaluation survey and scorecard, both of which I created. Through group discussions and individual surveys, I collected quantitative data used to assign a score to each development assessing their age-friendly attributes in relation to transportation, social engagement, housing, access to services, and access to community information. This information was then provided to the Vice President of Community Impact Strategy at the organization.Other roles I played at CPDC included writing blog posts for the senior living projects, assisting seniors in using technology, representing the organization at advocacy and learning days in DC regarding community engagement and equality, and organizing the health fair for the senior residents of DC.
