After nearly three years at Public Works, Summer is heading off to grad school! She’ll be studying interior design at Parsons, where she’s excited to delve deeper into interior design as a practice, art, and tool for change. Summer worked with dozens of clients during her time at Public Works and will always have an appreciation for the dedicated New Yorkers in the nonprofit and public sectors who work behind the scenes to make New York a friendlier, safer, and economically and environmentally sustainable place for their fellow New Yorkers. Some of Summer’s favorite projects she’s worked on include Billion Oyster Project, Drive Change and Sweet Generation, and Take Office.
Billion Oyster Project
Billion Oyster was Summer’s first project with Public Works and accordingly, it will always be special to her. The Public Works team helped the Billion Oyster Project, an innovative organization dedicated to restoring NYC’s oyster reefs while providing workforce and educational opportunities to young adults, to develop a career bridge program to connect youth to welding and welding-related occupations in high growth industries. Summer will never forget riding the Governor’s Island ferry in the freezing winter months for client meetings and learning more about welding than she ever expected to!
Learn more about the project: Designing a Welding Workforce Program
Drive Change and Sweet Generation
Drive Change and Sweet Generation are NYC-based social enterprises each dedicated to building opportunities for historically marginalized populations in the hospitality industry. Through the Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII), Public Works supported Drive Change and Sweet Generation as they developed new business models that responded to circumstances created by the pandemic. Summer enjoyed these projects because they involved highly impactful problem-solving in real time with extremely dedicated clients.
Learn more about the projects: Business Planning for a Mission-Driven World
Take Office
Take Office is a program designed to accelerate women’s careers in politics and the public sector through leadership development courses. Summer supported Public Works’ efforts to develop program evaluation tools to assess and improve the program based on participant feedback. Being able to work with Take Office in the program’s infancy made for a very meaningful client engagement and she looks forward to Take Office’s future success.
Learn more about the project: Introducing Take Office
We will all miss Summer’s dedication to advancing our clients’ missions and creating positive change in the communities we work in. We’re so excited to see where grad school takes you, Summer!
Join us in wishing Summer luck for this next chapter – and stay connected on LinkedIn!
Public Works Partners is a WBE/DBE-certified urban planning and consulting firm. Our expertise lies in creating innovative, equitable, and sustainable solutions to complex problems.