Non-profit seeking to place high school interns

Start-up organization to kick off corporate partnership drive, seeks to offer high-schoolers chance at real world experience

Email | Print By Richard Lawson

08-29-2006 12:49 PM — Parents, imagine your high-schoolers figuring out what career path they may or may not want to pursue before they get into college, change majors a dozen times and make you pay for it.

It’s called a summer internship. Though intern slots are usually reserved for college students, Jay Lefkovitz, 26, founder of non-profit HighSchoolInterns.com wants to start getting high school students some real world experience, beyond McDonald’s, to learn fluid dynamics and valuable social skills before they enter their college years.

On Sept. 14 at the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the fledgling non-profit kicks off its drive to attract employers willing to give high school students an internship. HighSchoolInterns.com provides a place for employers to post openings and high schools to apply for them as well as build a resume and a “passion letter.”

Speakers scheduled for the launch include Nancy Eisenbrandt, senior vice president at the chamber for work force development, Ellen Zinkiewicz, youth and community coordinator for the Nashville Career Advancement Center; Clay Myers, executive principal of Hunters Lane High School; Ann Hatcher, vice president of talent management and compensation at HCA Inc.; and Marc Hill, director of the Mayor’s Office of Children & Youth.

The corporate drive begins about a year after Lefkovitz created the non-profit. He spent the first year building partnerships with the chamber, Metro Schools, Vanderbilt University, the Nashville Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Pencil Foundation and others.

Lefkovitz, a Nashville native and product of Ensworth and University School of Nashville, is a budding entrepreneur whose first venture is a non-profit. That seems an unusual course initially, but he said, “I just wanted to give back.” While in high school, he had interned at Nashville background screening company Background America, now part of Kroll Inc., for two summers. “I thought it made a dramatic difference in my life,” said Lefkovitz, who worked for Kroll for three years after college.

He said he’s funding the effort himself for now but will seek to raise money from the community as well.