Interesting Internship: Sofia Russo and Massachusetts Avenue Project

By: Hannah Wiley, Assistant Features Editor

One of Canisius’ most popular majors, ABEC, is known for its internships at the Buffalo Zoo and the Humane Society. However, senior Sofia Russo, an ABEC major graduating in May, spent her internship with the Massachusetts Avenue Project, an urban farm here in Buffalo. 

This past summer, Russo interned at Cornell Cooperative Extension in her hometown. There, she did research on the invasive species, the spotted lantern fly, and their effects on the grape industry and vineyards in New York state. She helped to create an outreach program towards the farming community to spread information about how to tackle the invasive infestations. 

However, Russo found her real calling through the internship she did this past fall. Sofia described the organization as “a nonprofit in Buffalo that works on sustainable farming practices. It helps to get the community involved.” The farmhouse is right here in the city and consists of chickens, greenhouses and plots of fresh produce that they harvest and send right to their market! 

Not only do they have a market on-site, but they also have a mobile market, which is basically a fresh produce food truck, that they drive and park in underserved neighborhoods that don’t have easy access to fresh food. On an average day, Russo and the organization's two other interns would spend their days harvesting the food, processing it and weighing it, and then sending it directly to the market. All of the produce goes directly from vine to shelf. 

The organization also partners with a local Buffalo high school where the teens go through a six-week program and do rotations in all aspects of the nonprofit. They learn about social justice, kitchen and mobile market operations and the drip irrigation systems. One day they used marigolds to make dye and create tie-dye kits, and they also spent a whole afternoon in the basement where they let herbs dry out. “You grow the herbs and then you have to dry them for a couple weeks, and then after that, they need to be processed. So it was kind of like all the processing stuff. We strip them, put them into bags, label it, send it off to market, kind of thing,” Russo described. 

The only downside Russo mentioned was how physically taxing the internship could be. Being at the farm from 8 a.m. to 1 or 2 p.m., she’d spend almost all her time working in the gardens harvesting and weeding. In early August and late December, being outside with the Buffalo elements isn’t always the best place to be. 

Russo also stressed the importance of having multiple internships throughout your college career. “I never thought I was going to be working in like, agriculture, but here I am because I took up one internship that sounded kind of cool to me, because I didn't want to work at a humane society,” Russo said. Especially as an ABEC major, Russo emphasized branching out and taking internships that stray from working with animals.