The Internship

The Frassati Internship is an initiative sponsored by Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education to cultivate business talent in service of Catholic education. The internship provides Notre Dame undergraduates the opportunity to work in national philanthropic foundations and organizations that support Catholic education. As Frassati Interns, Notre Dame students will apply and hone the skills they have begun to develop in their coursework in service to organizations impacting education. Through the experience, Interns receive mentorship from senior executives, a competitive summer salary, and several seminars in the semesters pre-departure and post-internship.

Frassati Interns have the opportunity to work with people like Anthony Holter, an ACE grad and the Executive Director of Empower Illinois.

Read more about Anthony and Empower Illinois 

Who Do We Seek?

While all Notre Dame students are invited to apply, special consideration will be given to rising juniors and seniors. We are looking for dynamic leaders to: 

• Eagerly work alongside others to contribute to the mission of their partner organization 
• Display initiative, self-awareness, and hunger for personal growth 
• Deeply commit themselves to service and driving systematic change in Catholic education 

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati

Pier Giorgio Frassati, a soon to be saint, was an ordinary man who lived out his faith in extraordinary ways over the course of his short life on Earth. Born into a wealthy family in Turin, Italy in 1901, he studied intensely at the best academies to become a mechanical engineer. Frassati’s passions were wide and varied - he was an outdoorsman, a mountaineer, a political protester, and a jokester. However, his deepest passion was his love of the poor.

There are many accounts confirming Frassati’s dedication to the marginalized. He was often scolded by his mother for arriving late to dinner, but what she did not know was that he had spent his afternoon serving the hungry and then running home after giving away his bus money. Pier’s father would reprimand him for returning home without his coat not knowing that he gave it away. Pier Giorgio Frassati contracted polio from his work with the poor and died at the age of 24. His commitment to those in need was apparent even in his death as he scribbled a message to his friend with his paralyzed hand for medicine to be taken to a poor sick man that Frassati had been visiting.

Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati embodied the integrated lifestyle that we strive for at ACE, Notre Dame, and in the Congregation of Holy Cross at large. In the words of Blessed Basil Moreau, “...the mind will not be cultivated at the expense of the heart. While we prepare useful citizens for society, we shall likewise do our utmost to prepare citizens for heaven.” On the famous photo of Frassati’s final climb he wrote the words “verso l’alto” meaning “to the heights.” His entire life was dedicated to this climb towards the top, towards heaven. In this way, Frassati’s life inspires our interns so that their career, personal life, and faith life are indistinguishable from one another, but instead each inform the other.

Contact if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from you and welcome you to email or visit us in Carole Sandner Hall on Notre Dame’s campus.

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