CEF sends our thanks to our beloved Duke summer intern, Janet Xiao, for sharing her experience with the Duke University community by blogging about her experience with CEF!

Read Janet’s whole testimony here. Once you have read it, I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to resist getting involved and joining the CEF team in Durham.

Here are just a short preview of her post…

“CEF devotes a sizable chunk of time to building community because we believe that true, meaningful empowerment requires more than dishing out a bundle of services. It is found in “deep, genuine relationships.” In practice this means just hanging out, catching up, encouraging each other, cracking (often bad) jokes, sharing stories, drinking coffee, partaking in monthly dinners, hosting lots of parties, attending memorials… basically, being a community.

“In CEF, I feel that I have found what I was looking for: a way to steward the resources that I have been given in a way that brings good to others, while simultaneously forming a meaningful friendship that extends so much further beyond a “client relationship.” I’ve heard stories that have inspired and saddened me, I’ve been forgiven seventy times seven, and I’ve witnessed some amazing selflessness and generosity.”

Thank you for all your work this summer, Janet, and for continuing your work with CEF throughout your senior year at Duke. It is going to be a great year!