Cabrini College offers a variety of service trips through Campus Ministry that have the reputation of changing students lives. Campus Ministry offers service immersion trips to places such as New Orleans, West Virginia and Ecuador. Project Appalachia and New Orleans are offered as an alternative to students’ spring break. Rostro de Cristo in Ecuador is purely a service-oriented trip.
There are currently five to seven students trying to do a year of service after they finish their time here at Cabrini. These students have been so greatly impacted by the trips that they were previously a part of that they want to have the benefit of a year long experience. These trips have a “pay it forward mentality,” Father Carl Janicki said. He described the trips as having a tendency to inspire people, make a long-lasting impact on students and many connections are made through out the entire experience.
Anie Jamgochian, senior and triple major at Cabrini College, was surprised at “how much we could accomplish” in such a short period of time. Jamgochian was part of the service trip in West Virginia. She is very heavily involved in Campus Ministry as well as Cabrini’s programs and extra curricular activities. She was also a leader of Project Appalachia. She says that the leadership role was rewarding because she was able to watch the students grow, despite hardships. She enjoyed helping to shape participants experiences as well as her own and seeing the impact that they were able to make. Jamgochian holds the title of peer minister along with many other roles at Cabrini.
“Knowing that we were helping” was part of what made the who experience in the Appalachians worth it, Jamgochian said. Jamgochian and her companions were helping a man to rebuild his house that was claimed by a fire. Jamgochian felt that the most important part about their job was that they “helped him get something back” and made him feel “comfortable” in his own home again. She learned what it means to give as she and her companions worked hard to rebuild the man’s home.
Laura Nagy, junior social work major and English minor, is also heavily involved in Campus Ministry and other leadership roles. She is a part of the LEADStrong program and is a classroom coach. Nagy is a Search retreat leader because of her participation in previous years. She enjoys this particular retreat because she gets to “connect with everyone.” Nagy was also a pre-orientation leader for CAVenture and was part of the group that traveled to West Virginia.
She also participated in Rostro de Cristo. Her highlight from the trip to Educador was her experience in a children’s after school program in Guayakil, Arbolito. This particular neighborhood was what they called a “pop up city” or also know as an “invasion community.” The people that inhabited it moved there for security and to look for jobs in the nearby city. The neighborhood is owned by the government but the conditions are still barely basic. Their only hope was education and the firm “hope of the future” that they held dear. Nagy was inspired by the children that she met in this community and their attitude towards strangers that they had never met before. The children of the neighborhood knew that the students were there to take them to the program and that is why they were so joyful towards the Cabrini students. Even though a language barrier existed, it didn’t seem to matter to the residents.
Both Nagy and Jamgochian actively try to bring loving and community-based flavor back to Cabrini’s campus. Jamgochian stresses that “we are all human-beings.” She tries to live her life more simply since she was in Ecuador and says that it is a “freeing” experience.
As for Nagy, she feels that education was a big part of her experience and is bringing that thirst for knowledge back to her own community.
