Our Fellowships offer stipends to Mitchell Scholars and Alumni to support their pursuit of career-related work, internships, service projects, and personal and professional development opportunities. Without funding support, these college students and graduates are often forced to decline promising opportunities, because they cannot afford forfeiting earned wages and the cost associated with living away from home.

This program is entirely student-driven, meaning that Scholars and Alumni must find their career- or community service-focused opportunity, create a budget that demonstrates the need for a Fellowship award, and apply for funding.

Thanks to the generous donation from the J.A. & E.S. Hughes Fund at the Maine Community Foundation, the Mitchell Fellowship Program has been greatly enhanced and will be able to award a total of $35,000 each year to support Mitchell Scholars and Alums during a four year period from 2011-2014.

Let me share a few brief snapshots to help illustrate the kinds of opportunities our Scholars and Alums were able to say "Yes" to because the Fellowship program helped them make it happen:

• Seth, an Alum, is using the Fellowship award to complete a short film he intends to submit to several national film competitions.
• Asa, also an Alum, will apprentice with a luthier to learn from a master the skill and art of violin-making.
• Two different Hannah's are working for social justice non-profits (Peace Action Maine and Catholic Charities Immigration Services) and Greg is a counselor at Camp Susan Curtis this summer.
• Ryan just graduated from an out-of-state college and is eager to come back to Maine to be involved in green design projects; his Fellowship will support his internship with Maine Preservation.
• Kate is a Scholar who will travel to Honduras to volunteer while Dan is an Alum volunteering in Burma with Fellowship support.
• With the support of the Fellowship, Alex, a young Scholar from Northern Maine is able to return home to work for a Houlton-based engineering firm for the summer.
• Scholars are interning at Congressional offices in Maine and in Washington, for government entities like Inland Fisheries & Wildlife and in companies like Unum, IDEXX and BIW. One Scholar is working in a multi-lingual summer academic program. Another is a math teacher in Rockland who is developing a summer program that teaches math through dance.
• Several Scholars and Alums will be able to attend professional conferences where they will learn and network and, in some cases, present papers to their peers.

"I am very thankful for and appreciative of the Mitchell Fellowship Program! My internship at Huggins Hospital has been an amazing experience that has made me more confident in my skills to serve as a future pharmacist!"- Marissa

"Thank you so much for supporting my summer workshop experience! Last week, I was able to attend a training workshop in Facilitative Leadership through the Interaction Institute for Social Change because of support from the Mitchell Institute. The workshop highlighted and honed leadership skills such as agreement building, collaboration building, meeting and program design, personal and professional coaching, and much more! I walked away from the conference with several tools immediately applicable in my professional and volunteer work. Perhaps more than anything, I came away with an increased confidence in my ability as a social change maker!"- Joel

"As I finish up my Dietetic Internship, I am grateful for all the many gratifying opportunities I have had to share nutrition knowledge and my passion for working with food, and looking forward to the positive experiences I will have in my future career. I have been lucky to have had the chance to work with each age in the life cycle by presenting on specific topics, leading cooking classes or teaching nutrition courses, and more, in the community."- Kara

"I am writing to thank you for your generous $800 Mitchell Fellowship. I was very happy and appreciative to learn I was selected for this award. I am very excited to attend the international research conference being held in Greece in October, to share my research with colleagues from around the world. This Mitchell Fellowship will greatly assist by helping cover some of the travel costs to attend the European Aquaculture Society's conference."- Emily

Applications for the Mitchell Fellowships are available each spring by e-mailing us by CLICKING HERE or by calling (207) 773-7700. This program is open to Mitchell Scholars and Alumni.