One week as a Columbus Foundation Summer Fellow is officially in the books, and I could not be any more satisfied with my match at the Vineyard Community Center as a legal intern with their Immigration Counseling Services. I have wanted to become an attorney since eighth grade social studies, and there are few opportunities I could be taking advantage of during the summer in between graduating from the best damn university in the land—The Ohio State University—and matriculating to law school in the fall that will help make this longtime aspiration a reality.

I was immediately immersed into Vineyard’s framework, and I have spent the past week learning the fundamentals of a pertinent legal software, immigration law jargon, the filing of relevant paperwork, and more importantly, the immigrants themselves. Many times, especially from an academic standpoint, emphasis is designated to documents and numbers, forgetting, or even disregarding, the people that are actually impacted. At Vineyard, our focus is, and rightfully so, with the actual refugees and immigrants in need of legal and pragmatic assistance. On my second day, I spent the better part of the morning and afternoon completing the paperwork for a client; later that day I got to meet her and sit in on the counseling session she had with our lawyer, Elizabeth Watkins, who is a wonderful mentor, effectively putting a face and story to the name in the documents.

The welcome balloon my coworkers gifted me with on my first day.

The entire staff at Vineyard has been incredibly congenial, welcoming, and just extraordinarily nice. I am greeted every morning with a myriad of wide smiles and exuberant, passionate chatter. I have never had the good fortune of being in a work place that is dominated by such sincere and kind individuals, and for that I am truly grateful.

I earnestly look forward to the new experiences, skills, and relationships I will gain over the next nine weeks, so stay tuned!

-Abdulrahman Alwattar