Fisher Students “Serving the Underserved” Over Spring Break

Two groups of St. John Fisher University students and employees spent their Spring Break engaged in service, giving back to communities along the eastern seaboard.

Wegmans School of Pharmacy students spent their spring break on a service trip to Asheville, NC to attend the Asheville Summit, a pharmacy conference with the theme “Serving the Underserved.” After the conference, students brought that theme to life while partnering with Habitat for Humanity and helping veterans whose homes were flooded by hurricanes.

The Asheville Summit is an annual event hosted by the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy Asheville Campus and is planned by pharmacy students for other pharmacy students, as well as pharmacists and members of the health care field. Each year explores a different theme that is both relevant and timely to the pharmaceutical industry. This year’s theme examined how to utilize social determinants of health to inform care decisions, pharmacist responses in a disaster situation, and stories shared about serving patients affected by Hurricane Helene.

Students prepared and served food at Asheville Buncombe County Christian Ministries outreach to veterans, where many are currently being housed due to flood damage.

The remainder of the service trip was spent teaming up with Habitat for Humanity, an international nonprofit organization that helps families build and improve places to call home. Students removed and repaired the fence and deck for a resident who had trees crash on her house, destroying much of her backyard.​​ The group also installed new insulation in the crawl space of a home that experienced damage due to severe mud and flooding.

Students were accompanied on the trip by Dr. Christine Birnie, dean of the Wegmans School of Pharmacy, as well as faculty members Dr. Julliette Miller and Dr. Alex DeLucenary, who both serve as associate professors of pharmacy practice and administration.

“We had a chance to talk to them and hear their stories and how the hurricane really affected them,” said Miller. “Just to be able to see the emotional impact that we had by all of the work that we did, I think, was just so inspiring for us.”

The trip held special meaning for Miller and DeLucenay. DeLucenay performed his residency work in Asheville and lived in the region for a year, while Miller performed her residency nearby, in northern Georgia.

“As a service-oriented University, we really want to focus on having our students get out beyond the walls of our school, to be out and serve the community,” said DeLucenay. “We really wanted to make sure that we were able to serve the community that we both love down in North Carolina, and it was a perfect way to tie in our past with our present with Fisher and try to bring students who have a willingness and a heart to serve.”

The group also had the opportunity to connect with two Wegmans School of Pharmacy alumni who now live in North Carolina, Mitaxi Patel and James Youn.

As Fisher alumni themselves, Miller and DeLucenay—along with Mary DeLucenay ’07, who also joined the group on the trip—hope that they are providing current students with an example of how service to others is something that continues well after graduation.

“When you’re coming to Fisher, we’re teaching you not just to do a job, but have you grow as a human being; emotionally, academically, spiritually,” said DeLucenay. “Because, when you’re walking out of here with a Fisher education, it’s not just, ‘I can do a task.’ It’s, ‘I’m a developed human being who can go out and make an impact.’”

Gabe Moncayo, a first-year pharmacy student, was one of the students on the trip. While he has plenty of past community service experience, this was his first service trip experience with the School of Pharmacy.

“This is something that is not technically in our ‘wheelhouse’ of medications, but you’re still helping, you’re still changing somebody’s life that day,” Moncayo said. “Not only did this bring me out of my shell with my classmates and my peers, but it’s an experience you will carry for the rest of your life because you get to travel and see different things, but you also got to help people.”I can’t speak for everybody, but we’re in pharmacy school. We are supposed to be out there, we are supposed to be helping our community, and this is such a good taste of it that I would tell anybody in a heartbeat to do it.”

Campus Ministry also embarked on a service trip over spring break to aid in alleviating poverty.

Their services helped to provide food, reduce housing insecurity, offer companionship to the elderly, and assist individuals in their employment search efforts. The trip allows students to practice civic engagement and collaboration skills, both elements of the University’s student learning outcomes. From the Campus Ministry perspective, the trip allows students to engage in three major areas of human dignity, solidarity, and subsidiarity.

The group volunteered their time at several organizations in the city, beginning at Mother Boniface Spirituality Center, where they made and bagged 100 sandwiches to distribute via assembly line, and ending at Philly House, a shelter for men experiencing homelessness.

Throughout the week, the group also volunteered at the Philadelphia Project, St. Edmund's Senior Center, Cathedral Kitchen, Katie's Cupboard Pantry, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Mama-Tee Fridge, and ShareFood. 

Twenty-eight students attended the service trip, including Aidan Groeling, Angelina Piede, Ayah Silmi, Brandon Davis, Christina Valicenti, Dianna Nino, Evan Salazar, Ghasaq Al-Khafaji, Isaac Turenne, Jacquie Williams, Jaenid Ayala, Jonathan McCaffrey, Jonathan Velazquez, Kristen Trujillo, Kyle Green, Kylee Race, Maddie Pratt, McKenna Dziadula, Meg Gruschow, Narcelin Pena, Nina Sanders, Olivia Corbin, Ryan Marques, Shane Zaletofsky, Tyler Liebold, Vincenzo Perfetti, Xiara Valdez, and Yodit Ghebrezgabiher.

Deacon Jonathan Schott and Sarah Mancini-Goebert, assistant directors of Campus Ministry, along with Molly Place, associate director of student alumni and engagement, and alumnus Kevin Havens accompanied students on the trip.

“Campus Ministry’s service trip truly aims to be an experience where any student, whatever their academic aspirations are, can engage in meaningful moments of encounter,” Schott said. “Joining together in service of others transcends the classroom or the athletic field and gets to the core of what it means to be a member of this campus community and our commitment to transforming lives through goodness, discipline, and knowledge.”

This article was written by Brooke Eastman, a senior media and communication major. Eastman currently works in the Office of Marketing and Communications at Fisher for the spring 2025 semester.