The562.org is happy to announce a class of a dozen new Long Beach Unified School District high school students for the 2025-26 internship class. After last year’s program brought in 12 interns, this year’s dozen ties for the biggest internship class in company history.
This year’s selection process was extremely competitive, with close to 100 applications flooding in from across the city and beyond. This number of applications marks a record for the562 as well, with that being the most submitted since the program began in 2020.
The 12 interns for the 2025-26 school year are: David Kagurabadza, Samantha Santana, Rosa Mallach, Dayanara Martinez, Troye Gardner, Roselynn Diggs, Giana Chigogidze, Preston Holland, Bella Correa, Lorelei Brennan, Sohl Vadecha and Nevaeh Guadamuz.
Our internship program allows high school students to explore the field of journalism through the multiple lenses of our company. Interns have the opportunity to try writing, photography, videography and social media throughout the school year. These overlapping avenues of journalism allow our interns to try new things and grow their existing skills while covering the unique and ever exciting world of Long Beach sports.
Over the last four years since our program expanded to the high school level, we have sent young journalists to prestigious universities across the nation. From the West Coast beaches at Pepperdine University, USC and our very own Long Beach State to top programs at Northwestern, Harvard, Cal and Maryland, the562 is proud of each and every student who has come through our program.
As these students continue to explore the world of journalism, we have hired many of them to continue working within our company. Nina Fife and Eli Aquino, both part of the inaugural intern class, work as assistant editors for the562. We also brought on Rasheed Riveroll Castillo, an intern in 2023-24, as one of our talented photographers. We continue to work with many of our former interns as freelancers throughout the year, as well.
Our internship program continues to grow year after year. In April 2024, the LBUSD Board of Education unanimously approved a five-year contract with The 562 to strengthen and extend our paid high school internship program. Freshman Giana Chigogidze is our first intern from CAMS, serving as a symbol of the growth our program continues to experience each year.
This is only possible with the support of our donors, such as the Hoy Family and Elgato who have been constant beacons of sponsorship within the program.
Miguel Lozada and Elgato sponsored three interns for the 2024-25 school year, along with the Bershstel family and Libby and Steve Hoy who sponsored two each. Ryan Thies, Pacific Concepts, the Bay Area Breakers, Dan and Desiree Gooch, and Joe Carlson and Debbie Hughes also helped with the expansion of our program, sponsoring one intern spot each.
We always need more support to help encourage constant growth of our internship program. If you’re interested in sponsoring one of this year’s interns to help offset the cost of equipment and training, please reach out to Tyler Hendrickson at tyler@the562.org.
