“Maybe I just need to change where I work and not what I do for work,” Foster told herself.
So, she began applying for jobs, and in 2024, Foster started working at the Duke Cancer Center. As of early 2026, Foster, now 22, was one of six former MaryAnn Black Summer interns working at Duke.
A Duke Health-Durham Partnership
The idea for an internship program grew from a handful of students hosted by former Duke University Health System leader MaryAnn Black into a structured, paid internship that now run in partnership with Durham YouthWorks. Participants spend three weeks touring clinical spaces, learning skills and hearing directly from Duke employees about their careers.
The program was renamed for Black – a licensed clinical social worker and longtime community leader whose work focused on families, children and building stronger connections between Duke and Durham – following her death in 2020. She served as the Associate Vice President for Community Relations for the health system.
Sierra Foster now works in Hematology Oncology at Duke University Hospital after twice participating in the MaryAnn Black Summer Internship while in high school. Photo by Travis Stanley
The MaryAnn Black internship program marks the 10-year anniversary of its founding in 2026 while welcoming its 11th class of Durham-area students. What began in 2016 as an effort to introduce local high school students to health care careers has grown into a longstanding partnership between Duke University Health System and Durham YouthWorks that has helped hundreds of young people explore professions at Duke and, increasingly, return as employees.
Each class has averaged 27 students each year, and Kimberly Monroe, the program organizer, said Duke Health will host 50 students this year. Monroe, who initially was hired by Black to work at Duke in 2005, can’t help but think that Black would have been proud to see what it’s become.
“MaryAnn was very passionate about young people and education, and seeing them get that hands-on, up-close opportunity,” Monroe said. “She was really excited about seeing this program grow because it’s not often that people will take a chance on a young person.”
A Chance to Learn about Health Care
The internship program relies on volunteers from Duke to share insights on more than 70 different careers at Duke Health. Uzuri Holder, Program Manager for Duke University Hospital’s Violence Recovery Program, is one such volunteer who is eager to share about the work she does as a social worker and inspire conversations with other presenters and mentors.
“I want them to see all the opportunities that are in health care because it wasn't until I got into health care that I started to learn there's so many different things you can do in health care,” Holder said. “Some things I never even heard of.”
And a chance to see what it’s like to work at Duke. A particularly memorable experience in a laparoscopic surgery lab still sticks with Foster, as do the conversations she had with presenters.
“People were just so welcoming and inviting,” Foster said. “It was just very different in all the best ways.”
The program helped Foster understand the expanse of work nursing assistants could do, and it deepened her love for the profession. She’s now finishing up pre-requisites to apply for nursing school in the fall. If all goes according to plan, she expects to have her degree in 2029 and wants to continue working at Duke.
“There’s no telling what the future holds, but I love it here at Duke,” Foster said.
Which is exactly what Black wanted the program to reveal to Durham high school students, according to Duke Social Worker Tiffany Bell.
“It is amazing that she still is living on in her dream of working within the community, especially our youth,” said Bell, who was a longtime family friend of Black’s. “It's an honor to help continue this – not only just because I knew her before she was MaryAnn Black, all these other acronyms after her name, but just knowing that she really cared about the community and families and the intersection of understanding the Duke system and the community.”