Growing Into a New Path

The mid-afternoon sun shines through the blinds as Grace Keller '27 sits with her colleagues around a table. They're gathered for a development meeting, and as she looks around the room and listens, Keller is awed by her coworkers' dedication to their community and the ways they budget and seek financial assistance to make a difference in the place they live.

Keller has always wanted to understand how the nonprofit world worked, especially grant writing. This goal led the theatre major to the Brackenridge Park Conservancy.

"Brackenridge Park Conservancy takes care of much of the land near Trinity, and I was interested in their plans for the park's future," Keller says.

Keller applied to the Brackenridge Park Conservancy through the Arts, Letters, and Enterprise (ALE) summer internship program, which helps Trinity students expand their learning beyond the classroom to gain real-world career experience in the arts and nonprofit sectors. Supported by a stipend and free on-campus housing, students participate in a 10-week internship with a local organization of their choice.

The ALE program first sparked Keller's interest because of its theatre internship opportunities. English Professor Kathryn Vomero Santos, Ph.D. , helped Keller realize that ALE's non-theatre roles could also be great opportunities to gain real-world career experience. Keller credits Santos for pushing her to apply to internships that she never thought she would.

At her conservancy internship, Keller has worked to gain more experience in grant writing and in securing funding for the nonprofit organization. Her grant writing helps secure the funding the conservancy needs to maintain the care of the "third places" around San Antonio, the social spaces that are separate from the two usual social environments of home and workplace.

Keller's most recent fundraising project is Miraflores Park, a Mexican garden on Hildebrand-a street about five minutes away from Trinity's campus-that Brackenridge Park Conservancy manages.

"For the past three years, I have driven past the gate and always wondered what it was, so I'm excited to be part of fundraising to revive it!" Keller says.

At the Conservancy, Keller's typical day looks different from day to day. She writes the organization's newsletter, locates financial documents for ongoing grant applications, and more. She mainly focuses on grant writing and often sits in on fundraising meetings that continue to fuel her passion for the nonprofit world.

No matter what task she's tackling for the Conservancy, Keller draws on the confidence Trinity instilled in her to solve problems and work collaboratively with others. She says that at Trinity, she's become a leader, and this leadership is visible in every room that she walks into.

Keller initially thought that, given her major, her best prospect post-Trinity was to attend graduate school for a doctorate in theatre. Yet, her internship with the conservancy has helped her realize she can define her own path.

"My biggest life goal is to never stop learning. This internship has shown me that I don't have to be in school forever to achieve that goal," Keller says.

Now, Keller plans to take at least a year after graduation to work in the nonprofit sector or in arts administration, so she can learn more about grants, fundraising, and the day-to-day of life outside school.

"I was worried that I couldn't find meaning in a job outside the arts. I've now learned that this is not the case," she says. "I can find meaning in any worthwhile cause, even if I had very little exposure to it previously."