Northeastern co-op student appears on Netflix hit ‘Somebody Feed Phil’
Kaia Reed, a communications major who graduated from Northeastern this year, appeared on “Somebody Feed Phil” when the show filmed in Boston in November 2024.
Kaia Reed had never even heard of the Netflix series “Somebody Feed Phil” when she was asked to appear on it.
She and three of her roommates — who she roped into volunteering alongside her — watched the trailer for the show on the bus ride to the filming location.
That location was the Charles River Esplanade in Boston, a riverfront park along the south bank of the Charles River, the river that separates Boston to the south from Cambridge and Somerville to the north.
On “Somebody Feed Phil,” host Phil Rosenthal — creator of the popular sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond” — visits a new city in each episode, trying some of the region’s traditional foods, avant-garde dining and tourist attractions. Each episode also includes at least one segment highlighting a local charity.
In season 8, episode 3, which aired in June, Phil came to Boston.
At the time — November 2024 — Reed was a Northeastern University student on co-op with the Esplanade Association, a “non-profit that works to revitalize and enhance the Charles River Esplanade, sustain its natural green space, and build community in the park by providing educational, cultural, and recreational programs for everyone,” according to its website.
Reed graduated from Northeastern in May with a degree in communications and media and screen studies.
With the Esplanade Association, which she affectionately calls “EA,” Reed “worked as their development communications associate,” she says. “I feel like that was a really good starting point for me in my professional career,” she continues, “because I got to see the backend work of such a successful and vital nonprofit in Boston.”
Her day-to-day work focused on donor management, sending out communications and acknowledgments and researching prospective donors.
So she was surprised when Hollywood came calling — after a fashion. “I just randomly got an e-mail from my boss,” she says, laughing. “He was like, ‘Hey, we have something fun for you to do.’”
“All I saw was ‘Netflix.’”
The Esplanade Association asked Reed to bring along some friends as volunteers who could also be featured in the episode. Reed sent the email out to her Northeastern friends — “Unfortunately, a lot of my friends were busy or had other things to do,” she says. “You know, Northeastern students always have something going on.”
Reed managed to wrangle three of her roommates into accompanying her. “We watched a trailer of ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ on the bus ride to the park,” she recalls. “We had to know what we were getting into.”
In the segment, Rosenthal joined the EA volunteers, walking along the Esplanade and collecting trash. “I want to know how you all got involved with this wonderful thing,” Rosenthal asks Reed and her friends.
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“At Northeastern University, we have a co-op program,” Reed says, “where you can work full time for six months.”
At the end of the segment, Rosenthal treats Reed and her roommates to some baked treats from Verveine Cafe in Cambridge.
Reed says that it was a wonderful, surprising opportunity that she wouldn’t have had were it not for her co-op. “I was able to network with a Netflix producer,” she says proudly. They’ve met since the original filming, Reed continues. “We talked about life and a career in the industry.”
That producer was Natalie Ruiz Davis, who produced both the Boston and Las Vegas episodes of the most recent season.
“We had a great time filming in Boston!” Ruiz Davis wrote in an email. “The real highlight for Phil and our crew was chatting with Kaia and her friends, who clearly have bright futures ahead.”
After the episode aired, Reed says that EA began receiving donations from random locations around the country like Wisconsin. “We’ve never gotten donations from there before,” Reed recalls her boss saying.
Ruiz Davis also praised the Esplanade Association, which seemed almost too good at its job: “We set out to have Phil pick up trash in the park, but it was so clean that it turned into more of a fun bust where we ate treats from Verveine instead.”
“While we often focus on far-flung locations, telling the story of a local space and the people who care for it is one of the things that makes the job special,” Ruiz Davis wrote.
“I’m so thankful for the experience,” Reed concludes.
