SJC Students Spend Winter Break Performing Community Service

January 22, 2015

Patchogue, N.Y. – January 22, 2015 – A dedicated group of students from St. Joseph’s College (SJC) opted for an alternative winter break close to home this year, and spent their time helping people in need.

“The alternative winter break allowed a group of students to stay in New York and work as a team,” said Patrick Tracy, director of campus ministry on the Long Island Campus of SJC. “We visited various work sites for Habitat for Humanity where we repaired residual damage from Superstorm Sandy. Coordinating and leading service projects like these allow us to see hands-on, real demonstrations of our mission statement.”

In early January, a group of eight SJC students and two staff members from both the Long Island and Brooklyn campuses began their winter break with a visit to a Habitat for Humanity site in Breezy Point, a neighborhood in Queens, New York that suffered significant damage due to Superstorm Sandy in 2012. The group was able to rebuild a porch railing for an elderly woman and paint basement walls to renovate a home. The following day, the group continued to work in Breezy Point, where they painted and spackled walls for homes that were damaged in the storm.

The third day of work brought the group to the St. John’s Bread & Life Soup Kitchen in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. There, they joined a team of volunteers to help serve more than 1,000 plates of breakfast and lunch to the hungry. In addition, they were able to fulfill the pantry requests of approximately 125 people, wash dishes and prepare food for mobile meals unit.

“For me the most powerful thing was to be able to help people still rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy,” said Angela Vetere ’18, freshman at the Long Island Campus of SJC. “Finding out two years later that people are still rebuilding was a humbling moment, but seeing that Habitat for Humanity of Westchester County is still dedicated to getting people back in their homes made me proud to be working with this organization.”

For more information about SJC, visit www.sjny.edu.

ABOUT ST. JOSEPH’S COLLEGE
St. Joseph’s College has been dedicated to providing a diverse population of students in the New York metropolitan area with an affordable education rooted in the liberal arts tradition since 1916. Independent and coeducational, the College provides a strong academic and value-oriented education at the undergraduate and graduate levels, aiming to prepare each student for a life characterized by integrity, intellectual and spiritual values, social responsibility, and service. With campuses located in the Clinton Hill area of Brooklyn and in Patchogue, Long Island, the College offers degrees in more than 29 majors, special course offerings and certifications, affiliated and pre-professional programs.