SLU Freshman Earns National Fellowship Through Passion for Service

This summer, I hope to examine more organizations addressing food insecurity. Before I graduate, I want to either expand a program or create one that gives properly nutritious food and proper vitamins to pregnant women and newborns living in food deserts.

My thought process: If habits are created early in life and the first few years of life are crucial for the development of a human, why not get the mother into those habits and have two people have good eating habits.

Another project I have recently gotten into researching is finding a way to have storage lockers in St. Louis for people experiencing homelessness to allow for them to feel more secure and have the ability to go to interviews or jobs without all their stuff.

Going to Saint Louis University High School, I wanted to continue my Jesuit education because I think the Jesuit mission is very geared towards making good, all-around people. Most of my role models at some point were associated with SLU.

Then, the 200 Years of Service in One Challenge really made me happy because it showed that service was just a normal thing at SLU (and so far it has been).

I also learned about public health as a major my junior year of high school and thought it was just the coolest sounding thing ever, and SLU has a college dedicated to public health.

I think service impacts me because it makes me more caring and interested. If I did not have testimonies from people I met or if others didn’t have testimonies in my classes, no one would truly be learning. We learn best from the experiences of each other. I think those testimonies give us a push to do something about it.

Professionally, I do not yet know which path I will take for my career. I do not think I will be able to separate my personal and professional life (just the type of person I am), so I want to do something where I will feel satisfied personally and professionally.

In the College for Public Health and Social Justice, some of our classes have a service-learning component to them. I love it because it allows me to be more reflective about what I am doing.

I love learning about the theoreticals in my classes, but then meeting people affected by the policies and initiatives I learn about in class. It helps examine if they are actually working or if they are just theoretical. I want to do more in terms of listening to people in the coming years.

I live my life by the motto: ‘Man for and with others,’ attributed to Pedro Arrupe. I want to work with people and accompany people to see what they want and create initiatives based on their preferences.

I find that God can be most present for me in other people that have lived different lives from me: hearing stories, hearing courage, and hearing their strength. It gives me strength to continue in my life.

I have known Bryan Sokol for, I think, three years now. He has been a good role model for a Jesuit leader and how to live a life of service to others. He will be my mentor for the fellowship, and I am so excited because he is so kind and knows/cares about a wide range of topics which helps me get encouraged to learn more and do more advocacy for different topics.

Being a Newman fellow, I will have a lot of resources and a great deal of different opinions, stories and voices to listen to. I am excited to hear how the other fellows address issues in their communities.

I think the few of us in Missouri might get together and plan things locally together. That is not very developed yet, but it’s my hope.