When Nakaya Harper started looking at Birmingham Promise internships, she had an idea of what she wanted. She got something very different – and it turned out to be just what she needed.
“I was looking for an isolation job,” she said. “I was a shy person. I wasn’t big on communicating.”
She ended up at UAB’s Live HealthSmart Alabama— a program that spends its days out in Birmingham neighborhoods, running a mobile market that brings healthy food into communities and a wellness unit that provides screenings and preventive health information. Both involve interacting with strangers all day.
“This helped me. I met new people,” Nakaya said. “It’s a job where I had to talk. It got me out of my shell. It has helped me become more confident.”
A first for both of them
Nakaya, a graduate of Jackson-Olin High School, was the first Birmingham Promise intern Live HealthSmart Alabama ever hosted. A new intern will start in September, and Trina Holmes, Live HealthSmart Alabama’s partnership engagement manager, said Nakaya set the bar high.
“She fit right in. She was eager to learn, and her personality was just bubbly,” Holmes said. “She was like a sponge. She just took everything you had to say and absorbed it. She reminded me of me.”
Under the Birmingham Promise umbrella, Nakaya worked with the team through the fall and spring semesters of her senior year. Then she stayed on through the summer under a program run by the Housing Authority of the Birmingham District, based on a recommendation from Live HealthSmart Alabama. Her internship wrapped up Aug. 14, just as she was leaving to attend college at Alabama A&M.
During her internship, she worked on Live HealthSmart Alabama’s mobile market, where she helped run the register and stock the shelves. She also worked on the wellness side, where she greeted people, helped them with surveys and assisted in screening activities like determining body mass index.
“The team that I worked with was amazing,” Nakaya said. “They made me feel like family. They were always here to help.”
Hosting a high school intern took some problem-solving for an organization that doesn’t stay in one spot for long.
“In most cases, BCS buses transport interns to their job locations. But because we’re not stationary, that didn’t work,” Holmes said. “Fortunately, we had a grant with Uber Health. We were able to get an Uber to each one of our stops, which included 40 of the 99 neighborhoods in Birmingham.”
‘God placed that in my life for a reason’
Holmes spent 25 years in banking before joining Live HealthSmart Alabama. Banking paid the mortgage; community service filled her spare time. Now the two are the same thing. “To be able to serve and pay the mortgage — that was a dream come true,” she said. “I was created for this job.”
Nakaya felt a similar sense of destiny about her time with Live HealthSmart Alabama.
The relationship went beyond a job. Her colleagues focused on Nakaya’s overall well-being, gave her life advice, and at the end of the school year, the team recorded an encouraging video for her.
“It was them talking about me, how they loved working with me and they hope I do well,” Nakaya said. “I never got that before. I thank God I was able to get that job. I really feel like God placed that in my life for a reason.”
After her experience at Live HealthSmart Alabama, Nakaya highly recommends the Birmingham Promise internship program.
“It really taught me some discipline,” said Nakaya, who worked a morning shift and is not a morning person. “They would stay on me about being on time.”
She believes Live HealthSmart Alabama’s investment will have a lasting impact. “I never had a real job where people cared about how I carried myself,” she said. “I carry myself better. It changed who I am as a person.”
Holmes was careful not to let Nakaya assume every workplace would feel like this one.
“I didn’t want her to expect every environment to be as loving and supportive,” Holmes said. “You may never hear another employer who says ‘I love you’ or who is fully invested in you as a whole person.
“I told her: ‘You have a bright future. You are the driver. Don’t let anyone redirect you,” Holmes said. “If they’re not there to assist you, they are not for you.’”
What comes next
Nakaya started classes at Alabama A&M this month, studying biology with tuition assistance through the Birmingham Promise scholarship program. She’s weighing a career as an ultrasound technician or in anesthesiology. Either way, the internship grounded her in health, and gave her skills she says will translate anywhere: “Communications. How to talk to my peers. How to treat others. Keeping it professional.”
Holmes said her team simply took Nakaya’s raw gifts and refined them. “You have people who light something within you. They shine it and polish it. And then you can pass it along to the next person,” she said. “That’s who I wanted to be for Nakaya.”
