Each summer, Canopy welcomes interns who are eager to learn and serve, and become part of a community working toward a more welcoming Northwest Arkansas. This year, that community grew a little bigger as students traveled from across the country to spend their summer investing in the lives of refugees.
There is an old saying, common to many of the traditions that pass through Canopy’s doors, that hospitality is never a one-way exchange. The host sets the table, but the guests, on arriving, give something back: a story, a question, a reason to see a familiar place again as if for the first time. It is a quick kind of reciprocity and it is easy to overlook if you are only continuing what gets done.
This year, that exchange arrived in the form of college students who came to Canopy from from Chicago, from Chapel Hill, from Northwest Arkansas, and from points in between. They brought unique perspectives and a shared desire to make a meaningful impact. They came to help refugees and immigrants build lives in a new country. They left, by their own account, having been changed as much as they changed anything.
The pull of the work
Adoni had already spent one summer at Canopy when she decided to come back for another. That, in itself, tells you something. A student at the University of Chicago studying Law, Letters and Society alongside Political Science, she could have spent the season anywhere that looked good on a resume. Instead, she returned to a place that had, in her words, made her fall in love with the experience.
“There is always something to do, always a conversation to be sparked, and I learn something new every time I’m here,” she said.
Originally from Virginia Beach, Virginia, Adoni welcomed the slower pace of Northwest Arkansas and the chance to be closer to family and friends. But it was the substance of the work that held her. She spent the summer alongside Canopy’s Legal Immigration Services Team, helping with permanent residency cards (Green Card) and citizenship applications, the paperwork that quietly decides whether a person gets to stay, to work, to belong. The experience deepened an interest in immigration law that now looks less like a curiosity and more like a calling.
What stayed with her, though, was not the casework. It was the people doing it.
“The amount of people who are invested in bettering their community daily,” she said. ”It’s not an easy job, and it’s incredibly admirable to see such devoted people working at Canopy.”
She came away with a sentence that could serve as the whole summer’s thesis: life, she realized, is bigger than yourself and the community you’re in. Her advice to the interns who follow her is disarmingly simple. Stay open. There is more here to work on than any one person can imagine.
A business built on Belonging
Mateo arrived by a different road. A rising sophomore at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, pursuing a double major in Business and Music, he came from the Raleigh area with family roots in Ecuador. For him, the mission was not abstract. Mateo’s personal connection to immigration made Canopy’s mission especially meaningful.
“As the child of an immigrant family, I understand how important immigrants and refugees are to the community,” he said.
While searching for a summer internship that would combine business experience with meaningful community impact, Mateo was introduced to Canopy’s Entrepreneurship Program. What began as an unfamiliar opportunity quickly became one of the most formative experiences of his college career.
From his very first day, Mateo was entrusted with meaningful responsibilities. He worked directly with refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs, helping guide them through Canopy’s Entrepreneurship Program while learning firsthand about business planning, marketing, taxes, financial projections, and launching a small business – the long list of things that separate a good idea from a going concern.
One of his largest undertakings was coordinating Canopy’s Young Entrepreneurs Program, where he managed recruitment, daily programming, budgets, and partnerships with local businesses before organizing the students’ final pitch competition.
Along the way, Mateo also worked one-on-one with entrepreneurs to design websites, business cards, and restaurant menus using AI tools, building his own technical skills while helping business owners discover new ways to strengthen their marketing.
Reflecting on his experience, Mateo described Canopy as one of the most welcoming environments I have ever been a part of, a place where interns are trusted to take initiative, ask questions, and grow through meaningful work.
What the guests give back
It would be easy to file all of this under the familiar heading of good internships, the kind that builds skills and looks well on the way to a career. And it did that. Adoni leaves surer of her path towards immigration law and a life spent serving immigrant communities. Mateo leaves with hands-on business experience that strengthened his understanding of entrepreneurship while building confidence in leadership, project management, and creative problem-solving.
But something less measurable happened as well. Two students who came to help new neighbors settle into an unfamiliar country found themselves, for a season, doing the settling. They learned the region by serving it. They learned the meaning of welcome by practicing it. And they left carrying relationships and a sense of purpose that no course catalog can promise.
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