All in a Year's Worth of Work

I am a helper. I am caring. I am one who stops running to help the person who tripped next to me. Through the values that a single mother instilled in me as a child to the values I gained from being a fraternity man of Alpha Sigma Phi and Fraternity/Sorority Life, I learned that it only takes the leadership and courage of one individual to create change. Margaret Mead argued, “Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have.”

Last summer I was searching to get involved in a cause that required communities to unite and work together to achieve a common goal. That’s when I came across the Global Peace Foundation’s Safe Haven campaign on human trafficking prevention. Upon seeing no community support groups for victims and survivors in all of the Northeast United States and learning that this heinous act is a $32 billion industry preying on more than 100,000 Americans, I knew something had to change.

Four weeks of training 31 fraternity men later, Alpha Sigma Phi became a certified Safe Haven and a source of help for victims. Leading a men’s organization in this fight resulted in a news story on WPTZ which caught the attention of our headquarters, the local Rotary Club, and Dr. Susan Ryan who teaches a human trafficking course at the University of Vermont.

I have found my calling through this campaign: I started a journey toward ending gender violence, an epidemic affecting 1-in-5 females and 1-in-16 males across college campuses. Being a male in a fraternity does not mean I cannot be an advocate for sexual assault prevention. It is individuals like myself who need to lead the engagement of these conversations with other students.

Since the beginning of February, I have been working with Title IX Coordinator Butterfly Blaise not as an intern but as a resource to bring Jonathan Kalin, founder of Party with Consent and Male Athletes Against Violence, to campus. I have been securing funding through CAS grants and even presented in front of the SA Senate as to why they should fund this presentation. All 16 senators voted unanimously for the event’s funding.

It is my goal through this event to unite communities across campus to be a part of the conversation and register groups for individual workshops with Kalin throughout the day.

I have also been volunteering for North Country Honor Flight, a nonprofit that sends World War II and Korean War veterans to see their war memorial in Washington D.C. at no cost to these heroes. As a group leader in this campaign, I supervise other volunteers to ensure we are successful in raising the $12,000 and locating 14 veterans needed to experience one last mission.

My friends and family often ask me, “How do you do it?” Although at times I may feel overwhelmed, I respond by saying, “A cup of coffee and a dream can take you anywhere.”

Music Takes Me Away

Living with anxiety, especially in college, is difficult. I constantly worry about stuff I shouldn't be worrying about in that moment and thinking about all of the duties I need to get done each day gives me mounting stress.

But there's one thing that always remedies the situation: playing music.

When I was just 3 years old, my family had this old brown piano sitting in our basement. Nobody in my family was musical, though. I think it had just come with the house. So when my mother went down into the basement to do laundry, I would go down with her and sit at the piano.

What my mom describes happening is her toddler not just slamming his hands on the ivory keys, but trying carefully to play keys in a way that a pianist would.

Since then, I have taught myself to play four different instruments: guitar, piano, bass and drums. I have no idea where this skill came from, but when I hear a song it stays with me forever, and I can immediately apply it to an instrument within five minutes.

And when I do, something magical happens. Playing music takes me away from the worries of my life. It is my escape from reality. Without the constant communication between music and my soul, I'm not sure how else I would deal with my stress and anxiety besides laying in bed all day. And I'm willing to bet Beethoven was not a couch potato.

The Greatest Generation Never Forgotten

I still remember the scent of his aftershave as his scruff scratched my soft skin when I hugged him goodbye. My Grandpa Tony fought in World War II, and that’s all I know about his military involvement. I didn’t know what he did, where he was or what the war was even over. I didn’t know because I was only in the first grade when my hero died.

I say “hero” because now that I’m much older and have a better understanding of this great patriotic war—a war full of personal sacrifice for the cause of freedom—I realize what a fascinating man my grandfather really was.

My Grandpa Tony created the mold of what I thought a man should be. A man provided and cared for his family, a man cooked delicious Sunday Italian dinners, a man had a yearning to learn something new every day.

He also taught me a thing or two about what true love is.

The distance between the two forced my grandparents to write letters to each other. Grandpa Tony started each letter with “My Darling Dorothy” written carefully in the neatest script. You could tell that writing these letters was like trying to craft poetry for the two of them.

Even though I was too young to know much about my grandfather, I quickly realized he was a man I wanted to emulate as I learned more about him as I grew up. There’s a reason they call his generation the greatest; they are the reasons we enjoy most of the freedoms we have today.

From working with North Country Honor Flight, a nonprofit that sends World War II and Korean War veterans to see their memorial in Washington D.C., I see how important remembering and honoring the sacrifices these men made is while being a part of a generation that often forgets about these heroes.

I wish my grandfather could have stuck around later than he did so that I could have seen him go on “one last mission” to see his war memorial. But he is honored each and every day by his grandson who strives to be as great of a man as he was.

Help the remaining few hundred North Country World War II veterans experience Honor Flight by making a donation here.