“If America runs on Dunkin’ Donuts, D.C. runs on unpaid internships,” says Carlos Mark Vera, the founder and executive director of Pay Our Interns, a newly minted, bipartisan nonprofit based in Washington, D.C that advocates for paid internships within the public and private sector.
Celebrating its recent one-year anniversary, Pay Our Interns began as a response to an obstacle Vera himself faced during his time in college. As a freshman at American University in Washington, D.C., Vera obtained a coveted “Hill Internship,” interning for a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. Detailing his experience, Vera writes: