Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2)
The Center for Civic Innovation’s Educational Ecosystem (E2)Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2)
The Center for Civic Innovation’s Educational Ecosystem (E2)
In our local community, many high school and college students decide to relocate after graduation to pursue educational and professional opportunities outside South Bend. The Center for Civic Innovation’s Educational Ecosystem (E2) is helping to combat this “brain drain,” while solving community problems, by offering select students from a number of local colleges and high schools with a unique and award-winning internship experience that they believe will encourage many to remain in our community to work and live.
Matched with professional mentors drawn from local government, nonprofit, and industry partners, along with local residents, CCI’s E2 program provides an environment where students, in a team setting, can take risks, exercise creativity, and apply what they learn in the classroom to make a real impact developing actionable solutions to a variety of pressing community problems. In 2020, for example, interns are expected to engage in 10 projects relating to safe and affordable housing, equitable access to health and well-being, and urban environmental sustainability.
As an economic development program with a strong, sustainable educational component at its core, E2 incorporates two of the three primary areas we support at The Judd Leighton Foundation. We approved their grant request and look forward to following the progress of our local students and their projects.
