A graduate of Virginia Tech
Placement: Richmond Community Hospital – Spiritual Health

‘Bon Secours’ means ‘good help.’ Who has modeled being ‘good help to those in need’ in your life? Describe why you are inspired by this person.

My senior year of college, I went on a service trip to Louisa, Kentucky.  There we met and worked with Sister Pat, a retired surgeon and religious Sister, and Father Mike, the priest at the local Catholic Church. Sister helps run the parish, which is very small because there aren’t a lot of Catholics in that area of Appalachia. Father is retired and recovering from a stroke, but, because they don’t have an abundance of priests in the region, he says mass every morning, often only for Sister and perhaps one or two others of the local residents, so that they can receive Jesus.  Seeing them in their real, daily lives without any glitz or glamour really struck me in the magnitude of the sacrifice they were willing to make, not only now but for the rest of their lives, so that Jesus, in the Eucharist, could be present with His people.  It was a powerful witness to the realness of Jesus.  I was also inspired because I felt some small part of the poverty they accepted—materially, socially, and spiritually—and began to understand that Jesus was enough for them and could be for me too.

 For fun, I like to cook. My favorite cuisines to cook from are Southern/Appalachian, Mexican, and Chinese.  I also like gardening, especially growing food plants like peppers and tomatoes.  I love wandering, by foot or by bike, and walking up hills.