Oregon native Meghan Mahaffy ’02 came to Fairfield on a volleyball scholarship and decided to do a year of community service that influenced her career path after graduation.
After three years of volunteering, Mahaffy now serves as volunteer executive director of Mount Hood Habitat for Humanity in Gresham, Oregon.
“I just now got my first paycheck,” Mahaffy said. Mahaffy’s job as executive director is to inform community members about what Habitat is doing.
“Simple, decent, safe, affordable housing,” she said. “For me, I see so much of a need here.”
Not all Fairfield students graduate with dollar signs in their eyes.
Melissa Quan, Assistant University Chaplain, said that in the four years she’s been working at Fairfield she has seen, not including those who don’t notify the school, as many as 15 to 20 students a year do post-grad service work.
Last year, Campus Ministry did something in conjunction with the fall Career Fair to show students “alternative professional opportunities in non-profit, or non-mainstream, work,” said Quan.
Campus Ministry also holds workshops throughout the year on filling out applications for service projects and picking an organization to work for.
Last year a total of 18 seniors applied for post-grad service, according to Sue MacAvoy, also an Assistant University Chaplan. Some of these students also applied for jobs with non-profit organizations, graduate schools, or for a Fulbright scholarship.
One student accepted the Fulbright, another went to law school and the other took a job in a non-profit organization. Of these 18 students, MacAvoy knows of nine who are currently doing service projects in the United States and abroad. Some of those projects include Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) in Alaska and on the east coast, Episcopal Urban Volunteers in California, FrancisCorps in Syracuse, Los Ninos project in Tijuana, Hillside Hospital in Belize, and Teach For America in Mississippi.
Mary Parr ’04 is doing a second year of service with JVC, and Michele Bernier ’04 is doing a second year with FrancisCorps.
The commencement speaker at Mahaffy’s 2002 commencement was also a Fairfield alumnus that chose to make a career out of community service.
Douglas Perlitz ’92 from Illinois spoke about his experiences in Haiti where he established and runs a school and residence for former street children in Cap Haitien.
“Doug has had…an amazing impact on one of the poorest countries in the world,” said James Fitzpatrick, assistant vide-president of Student Services. “He really personifies what a Fairfield education can do and how it can change the world.”
During his junior year, Perlitz first visited Haiti on a Campus Ministry trip. Fairfield’s Campus Ministry later helped to support the school Perlitz started.
According to Fairfield’s mission statement, one of the school’s goals is: “foster[ing] in them [the students] ethical and religious values and a sense of social responsibility.”
Mahaffy and Perlitz’s work fit this ideal very well.
Fairfield’s Campus Ministry offers both local and international opportunities for students to lend a helping hand. Students can choose from afterschool programs, mentoring, childcare or daycare, soup kitchens, programs for the physically and mentally challenged, AIDS ministry, prison ministry and even more options so students are able to “choose the outreach placement that best suits [their] interests and talents”, according to Campus Ministry’s website.
Seniors have the option of going to Ecuador, Nicaragua and a pending possibility of Haiti in January and sophomore and juniors can go to Ecuador, Mexico or Jamaica in May.
Students can also engage in service during their spring break or travel to North America through the North American Mission Experience (N.A.M.E.) project.
For seniors, a fall 2005 Post Graduate Service Fair is taking place on Nov. 2, 2005 from 5 to 7:30 p.m. in the Barone Campus Center Oak Room, and more than 40 agencies will be represented. Quan said the event is “a big event for us [Campus Ministry].”
Some of the organizations that Fairfield graduates have been involved in over the past years inlcude Jesuit Volunteer Corps, Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, FrancisCorps, Mercy Corps, Teach For America and Saint Vincent Pallotti Center.
For more information, visit Campus Ministry’s website at www.fairfield.edu/ministry.xml or talk to Sue MacAvoy at ext. 2953.
Leave a Reply