In 2011 the High Road Fellowship Program expanded to provide 14 students with the opportunity to participate in the program. The students, six from the area and eight from outside of Western New York, began working June 6 to help revitalize Buffalo.
This summer marked the third year of the program and the largest yet. The program has grown in the number of students participating and also geographically as students from California, Michigan and Pennsylvania came to Buffalo this summer. Five of the High Road Fellows live in Buffalo’s first energy neutral house. Known as the NetZero House, it is located on the West Side in PUSH Buffalo’s Green Development Zone. The area combines green-design affordable housing, sustainable landscaping, community planning, urban agriculture and green jobs training in a 20-block area.
Fellows and Partners participating in the 2011 High Road Fellowship Program:
- Derya Akbaba ’13, Urban Roots
- Jeffrey Baker ’14, Partnership for the Public Good
- Daniel Cooper ’13, Buffalo First!
- Susanne Donovan ’13, Daemen College Center for Sustainable Communities
- Abhishek Gupta ’10, MS ’11, International Institute of Buffalo
- David Huang ’13, Coalition for Economic Justice
- Sahil Jain ’14, Prisoners are People Too
- Elizabeth Li ’13, Clean Air Coalition
- Alyssa Murrett ’13, Public Accountability Initiative, Partnership for the Public Good
- John Parker ’12, PUSH Buffalo
- Lauren Schwarzenholzer ’13, Partnership for the Public Good
- Elizabeth Spivak ’13, Everywoman Opportunity Center [Closed]
- Andrea Thomas ’12, Heart of the City Neighborhoods
- Tom Wasko ’14, Buffalo CarShare
"This fellowship was quite simply amazing. I’ve learned so much and gained a much more professional and educated perspective.The opportunity to be such an essential part of an organization can never be replaced or forgotten; I never thought I would be able to do such satisfying work!” ~ Sahil Jain ’14, Prisoners are People Too
“I came to Buffalo without a complete understanding of what my summer fellowship would entail. I came to Buffalo not even knowing what a single letter in the MWBE acronym meant. After eight weeks of craziness, my final project is complete. With a final turnout of about 50, Bridging the Gap, Heart of the City’s development forum was a success. The past two months haven’t always been easy, smooth, or reassuring. But now that I can look back at everything I’ve done, I realize how much I’ve learned, how much I’ve grown, and how much I can handle when it comes to challenging work tasks. Here’s to Buffalo, the little (big) city that has captured my life and my heart this summer.” ~ Andrea Thomas ’12, Heart of the City Neighborhoods