10/02/2026
Thank you Anna, our SHECP summer intern, for organizing the Health and Wellness Fair for our Daystation guests. We also want to thank our community partners, volunteers, staff, and supporters for helping make this a success.
At this event local organizations shared resources focused on summer health challenges. Clients could have their vital signs checked, receive screenings for infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C, make their own hygiene and first-aid kits, and learn about heat stroke, dehydration, sunburn, and plant and insect related issues.
We also wanted to share these powerful words from Anna, which remind us how much impact we can all have.
“Most of all, my thoughts have returned to those small tasks I spent much of my time doing. I initially believed that handing someone a pair of clean socks, printing a bus route, or checking in to ask how a client’s job interview went was far removed from the large-scale changes I hoped to help facilitate some day. I have since learned that the opposite is true. I still have the same ambitious goals I brought with me to Burlington, but I now realize how essential daily, on-the-ground work is for understanding what policy actually needs to accomplish.
In the future, as I continue to strive for the common good in my professional life, I want to intentionally continue the kind of work I did this summer. The everyday challenges of homelessness can be so easily overlooked when policymakers become disconnected from the people they intend to serve. I am deeply grateful to the COTS Daystation for reminding me that there is no better education than to simply exist in community, act with compassion, and remain open to the lessons that can only be learned through human interaction.”
Thank you to our very own Tammy, for overseeing internships like this one. These experiences carry into the future and make real change. They help tomorrows social workers better understand people experiencing homelessness causing systemic changes.
