I had the privilege of working as a S.E.R.V.E. intern at Serve the City Paris during the remarkably warm summer of 2025—I cannot understate how this experience proved to be enormously invaluable in shaping my goals: as a member of a team, a volunteer, and an organizer in my own regard.
I was excited to be accepted into the program for the initial twofold reason of finding justification for prolonging my stay in a city that I’d fallen in love with and because I wanted to engage with the grittier side of that city, the side that did not go well with the six story Lutetian limestone hôte particulier-lined boulevards. I hoped to become a player in what truly makes Paris beautiful: the organization and the solidarity. And so I entered into the Impact Café with little more than this excuse and abstract ideal.
But from the very start of my time working for Serve the City my desire to come to work every morning began to change—I started to care deeply about the individuals I worked for—and with—the human beings who devoted their lives to helping others, and those “others” who in turn I began to know as friends. That is the spirit of Serve the City, this capacity to connect individually with those around you, to be inspired by them, to learn from them, and to be pushed by them.
It was individuals such as Simeon, Deren, and Nate who all guided me to reevaluate what it means to help one another. Zuzanna, Julie, and Safi all led by and through a clear passion for their work. And Musa, Mohaned and Mohammed all illustrated a love of life and an extremity of courage that deeply and enduringly inspired me. That was it—the beauty of Serve the City is the intimacy itself, the proximity and transparency that you have with those who you are working alongside and those who you are helping.
It seems then like after all, my reasons for joining STCP were misplaced—it wasn’t the city that gave me a sense of meaning, nor the abstract idea of doing “good” that pushed me to think creatively about the problems of organizing events, distributing water and electrolytes, or teaching English—it was, of course, the smiling face, the handshake, the wave from across the café.
Now, two short months after this summer with STCP, I find myself writing a thesis on consequences of the label “crise” of the immigration situation in France and I am planning to pursue a path that will eventually lead toward legal work with immigrants and refugees. And it was the people at Serve the City, every one of them, who I have to thank.
