- On campus, alumna
“Every time I go to work, I travel,” says Ashley, who helped people from 67 countries resettle in the U.S. when she worked for AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteer Service to America) after graduating. “I go to Mexican baptisms and rural South African schools. I eat delicious international home-cooking and to listen to many different languages – Vietnamese, Sudanese, Cambodian, Thai.”
Ashley wasn’t always so global. She grew up in the small town where her family has lived for generations and chose Southern New Hampshire University because it was close. Then, during her sophomore year, she signed on for a service trip to South Africa to teach children computer skills.
“The differences between being born in a first world country versus being born in a developing country became really apparent. When I came back I knew that I needed to work with people who have less,” she says.
Ashley began working at SNHU’s Center for Service and Community Involvement, organizing the yearly trip to South Africa and working with Somali refugees in Manchester. During her junior year, she helped implement a service learning program that enabled students to integrate community outreach into their courses of study.
Ashley’s love of service hasn’t ebbed since graduation. She is now enrolled in a master’s program in public service at the Clinton School in Little Rock, Ark. She will next travel to rural Cambodia to help the Woman’s Resource Center of Siem Reap develop and implement a five-year fundraising plan.
“My years a SNHU were defined by service. They changed my life,” Ashley says. “I started to see what privilege is, and how it really can enable a person to do good things.”
