Not many students can say they co-founded a political advocacy committee, participated in student government, class council, a volunteering organization, National Honors Society, Asian Student Association and more all before graduating from high school. Johanna Moncy can.
The recent Kissimmee Tohopekaliga High School graduate was honored for all these accomplishments when she was named a Student Leader from Bank of America earlier this year, and now she will add “completing a summer internship” to her list of achievements. The Student Leaders program from Bank of America program started in 2004 to encourage youth leadership, employment and prepare students to enter the workforce by connecting them with a eight-week paid summer internship with a local Boys & Girls club. Jodie Hardman, a senior vice president and market manager for Bank of America, said this program is highly competitive, receiving up to 100 applications locally, and in the thousands nationally. Only 300 junior or senior high school students are chosen each year from the U.S., and this year, four happen to come from the Greater Orlando area.
One of the primary factors that led to Moncy’s selection for the program was her advocacy work. Moncy co-founded a PAC entitled Done Waiting, where she served as the human resources and hubs director.
“We would get in contact with new campaigns that reflected our values and they would sign an agreement on not compromising on their values or not taking a certain amount of corporate money and we even got to work with people like Senator Nina Turner, and we helped (Senator) Jon Ossoff win his runoff election,” Moncy said.
Moncy’s involvement in her community helped her get into the program, she said. Now that she’s working and getting hands-on experience through the internship, she said this program will help her prepare for life after college.
“I kind of took it as like the first step to working towards what I want to do in the future,” Moncy said. “I want to be a public health consultant. And this is kind of like the day-to-day work that I’d be overseeing.”
Her passion for public health was not something she discovered until her junior year, she said.
“Over quarantine, I started working in political campaigns that connected people to resources in their area. And I became really passionate about it,” she said. “I ended up talking to a pre-med mentor over quarantine and when I told her about my extracurriculars in student government, and that campaign, she was the one that introduced me to the ld of public health and I almost instantly knew it was for me.”
Hardman, who has been working with the Bank of America Student Leader program since its inception in 2004, said its goal is to recognize and nurture future leaders.
“Many of these students have a passion for giving back, they have a passion for influencing their peers to make a difference,” Hardman said. “They have this united drive to attack and meet the needs of the community, whether that’s their school community or their neighborhoods.”
The internship itself is one that local Student Leaders have worked with for all 18 years of this program is the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Florida. The students are then part of a team that leads the summer experience for youths ages 9-19.
In the final weeks of their summer internship, the Student Leaders will have the opportunity to attend a virtual weeklong summit, formerly held in Washington, D.C. before the pandemic, during which they will talk about critical issues like housing, jobs, hunger and homelessness. They will also experience a virtual Capitol Hill, and be exposed to senators and congresspeople, along with meeting influencers, authors and other social or entrepreneurial leaders.
Hardman said there’s a great number of activities that the students will do as well, including hands-on documentaries, conversations, workshops, and even conversations about topics like mental health and the impact that mental health can have on your life and on your studies as a student.
“It’s really about nurturing these future leaders,” Hardman said. “They’re already successful in their own right in their high schools. But what are we going to do to help them get to that next place? How can we help them be better leaders, better students, and better advocates for where their passions lie in the community and that nurturing piece is a big part of this program.”
But her main point was that the students who participate in this program are inspiring to her. “It’s incredible to see,” she said. “The students that are really taking the next step in their adult life, and many of them will credit the Student Leader program for being part of their pathway.
“To see what students are doing these days at 18 years old, as juniors and seniors, it gives me hope for the future,” Hardman said. “It gives me hope for our community.”
