Interns are our secret weapon here at the Bicycle Coalition, and many have gone on to successful careers in public policy, urban planning, transportation, and community advocacy work. I should know – I was one!
The Bicycle Coalition is currently looking for winter interns to assist with event planning and administrative work in the policy and development departments. If you are passionate about making our streets safer for all community members and would like to learn how to put your skills to use for better cycling, pedestrian, and transportation networks, read our success stories, and then apply.
Before my time as an intern I was an athlete on the Bicycle Coalition Youth Cycling’s core team at Mastery Charter Pickett Campus. I was given the opportunity to intern at BCGP for two years through my high school’s internship program where I dipped my hands into many aspects of the coalition like grant writing and sponsorship outreach. As my time in the program progressed I moved on to junior coaching for one summer, and then onto assistant coaching until I graduated from the program as a scholarship recipient. Hereafter I was the head coach for the Tour team and the Girard College summer core team. At the moment, I am temporarily filling in as the BCYC Development Associate while waiting to get my visa to teach English as a second language in Spain.
Kyle Hearing was a policy fellow (an intern receiving academic credit for their internship) in 2016 where his best memories include bike counts and analyzing the data. Kyle enjoyed the combination of advocacy and engagement with analysis. He also volunteered as a homework help tutor for BCYC where he had a positive impact on many students including me. Hence why I chose Kyle to be my mentor as part of my scholarship, and he helped me through all four years of college. Kyle is currently a Project Manager & Senior Transportation Planner at Foursquare ITP where his position focuses on transit service and active transportation planning and analysis. This involves a lot of network analyses to understand existing mobility and accessibility barriers to prioritize improvements. He also enjoyed helping out with operational tasks related to many of the coalition’s initiatives, including grant writing, group rides, and the annual gala.
Kyle (left) and me at my graduation.
Cindy, one of our most recent policy interns, filled her time with calming traffic projects in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods and performing outreach to address residents’ concerns about speeding traffic. In tandem with Policy Director Nicole Brunet, Cindy presented information about traffic calming measures to the West Mount Airy group. Currently Cindy works as a Transportation Planner at Cross County Connection (CCCTMA), a non-profit Transportation Management Association, where she helps to provide transportation related services for seven counties in South Jersey.
Development intern Katrina became a data cleaning queen by filtering data through Salesforce. She also conducted market research on events like Bike to Work Day and Adult Learn-to-Ride classes along with marketing automation, analyzing nonprofit membership giving trends, and membership organization materials. Katrina has worked as a freelance fact-checker for over a dozen publications, including Smithsonian and TED talks and is currently getting back into reporting.
For questions or to apply for a winter internship at BCGP, contact Sonja Bontrager.
“The work I did as a policy intern greatly reflects the work I do now as I focus on projects and programs that look into traffic calming measures in different neighborhoods.”
~Cindy Yoo, Policy Intern 2022
“As a BCGP intern, I conducted outreach to schools to institute pedestrian and bicycle safety curriculum. My experience with BCGP and the knowledge I gained about the cycling advocacy in the region was key to getting hired at Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. At RTC, I work with partners and community members to build out the Circuit Trails network. What’s great about working at RTC is that I still get to collaborate with BCGP staff on a daily basis!”
~Anya Saretzky, intern 2013
“The BCGP team took a chance on me as I was never an avid biker and did not have much direct experience doing policy work. I wanted to learn and I was bringing in my community engagement experience to support the work of the team. I learned so much about policy work and how advocating for multimodal transportation and pedestrian safety was an integral part of community development.”
~Naida Montes, Policy Intern
“I learned the value of keeping work organized while at BCGP, and I carried this over to my work in the private sector. Pennoni now manages all work for five municipal clients through an online task management program.”
~Leonard Bonarek, Regional Planner & Organizer