LFNC Fellow Keshav Javvadi Makes His Mark in Person County

In Roxboro, North Carolina, employees of Person County work hard to address the challenges facing their community. For the past year, Keshav Javvadi, a Carolina alum, has been serving alongside them as a fellow for Lead for North Carolina.

The Lead for North Carolina (LFNC) program increases government capacity in local communities in North Carolina by placing young people in high-impact fellowships across the state.

Javvadi always knew he wanted a career in public service and kicked things off with an internship during the summer of 2021 with the UNC School of Government’s ncIMPACT Initiative. Here, alongside a team of fellow interns, he helped ncIMPACT develop and conduct a community listening tour by interviewing and surveying stakeholders across the state to guide the work of the newly created Carolina Across 100 Initiative. “We wanted this to be driven by the community, so we asked them, what are you struggling with and how can we help you?” said Javvadi.

“One of the things we’d heard on the listening tour was that local governments were having trouble hiring new employees,” said Javvadi, “It was during a brainstorming session with the ncIMPACT team that I started to think, wouldn’t it be cool if UNC had a program where students and young professionals received funding to work in local communities for a year or so? That’s when my boss pointed out that program really did exist.” Better yet, the program was located in the same building at the School of Government.

Javvadi joined the LFNC program and is now nearing the end of the first year of his fellowship with Person County.

In his current role, Javvadi has been working on five key projects with a variety of departments: conducting listening tours and developing a strategic communications plan, developing a digital inclusion plan to improve broadband access and affordability, organizing a community fair to publicize human and social service resources, organizing diversity, equity, and inclusion and sexual harassment in the workplace trainings, and helping revise the emergency operations plan for the county.

“I was a bit nervous when I first started because I felt like I didn’t have a lot of expertise behind what I was doing. I didn’t have a formal background in a lot of the projects I was now working on,” said Javvadi. “I learned that while there are certainly academic concepts that are helpful for these topics, and I made sure I learned those concepts, the effort and intentionality that you put behind these projects and how receptive you are to community feedback is also very important.”

A common challenge for local governments is having limited resources to solve the complex problems faced by the community. Through his role, Javvadi offers support to the county by lessening the strain on departments and increasing the organization’s capacity to engage. “Each department I’ve been working with for these projects was struggling to find the time to work on these initiatives due to their workloads. I’ve been able to impact the county government because I’ve been able to ease some of the workload and help with things they’ve wanted to do.”

The projects Javvadi is working on will have long-term positive impacts on the community—for example, helping improve transparency in communications from the county government through the strategic communications plan, or improving internet access through the digital inclusion plan.

Javvadi enjoys his work with Person County so much, he has chosen to stay on for a second year of the program. “I wanted to do two years to get the full experience and give back as much as I can. I enjoy working here and want to see the projects that I’m working on come to fruition,” he said.

After the program, Javvadi plans to attend law school and work in public interest law. “Now I’ve seen the government administration side of community service, but I also want the experience of helping people interact with the government from the outside through the legal system.”

Through the program, Javvadi learned “that local government plays a much larger role in our lives than most people will ever realize. I highly recommend for people that are interested in public service to look into local government as a viable career option—and specifically to look into this program and apply.”