Anthony Phillips ’10 recalls taking the bus as a child from North Philadelphia to an elementary school in a predominantly white community and noticing how the streets were cleaner in that neighborhood, the homes had lawns.

Phillips said there were clear indicators back then of housing redlining and racism at work. The corner of Philadelphia where he grew up, Phillips said, was rife with violence, undesirable homes, and drug deals taking place out in the open. The stark contrast made Phillips wonder on those bus rides in his childhood how two areas in such close proximity could be so different. 

“I always wondered why my neighborhood did not look as beautiful as other neighborhoods when it came to resources. I was always concerned about why this was happening in my neighborhood. So that made me think about the inequity, right? In my own city, one neighborhood looked beautiful, and another neighborhood looked like it needed a lot of support. But what I did love about my neighborhood at the time: It was full of love,” Phillips said.

“We had neighbors who looked after each other. We had neighbors who loved to chat and laugh with one another. We had great block parties and festivities. But we didn’t have the same resources as other neighborhoods when it came to making sure that crime and other nuisance things didn’t take place.”

From an early age, Phillips’ mother and grandmother taught him that values like kindness, integrity, and hard work could lead to a better life. They served as living examples of the joy found in helping others — offering a roadmap Phillips trusted. He also admired the industry, grit, and determination embodied by their tireless work and unremitting commitment to education. He has followed their example to this day

So in 2022, when Phillips was encouraged by his community to run for a seat on the 17-member Philadelphia City Council to serve the northwest section of Philadelphia where he grew up, he answered the call. With no electoral experience — but a hefty collection of degrees that led the Philadelphia Inquirer to dub him “an academic wunderkind” — Phillips won a seat at the table in Philadelphia City Hall in a special election at age 33. Then he won the regular election a year later, earning the right to continue serving the people of the 9th district. And in just his first 15 months in office, Phillips proved his commitment to serving those in need.

For Anthony Phillips, what it took to overcome financial obstacles, redlining, and urban decay and find a life journey worth pursuing was the hard work, love, resolve, and faith his mother and grandmother passed on to him.

“My grandmother was my second parent. I never even met my father until I was 21 years old,” Phillips said. “But my mom always surrounded me with people that could be impactful in my life. She always said to me, ‘Hey, I want you to hang out with Mr. Cleave and Mr. James. Mr. Cleave and Mr. James ended up being these 70-year-old men who were my mentors, who taught me how to play checkers, but also encouraged me. They’d be like, ‘Hey, I like the way you speak. I like the way you dress. I liked the way you treat your family.’ They gave me positive affirmations.

“Growing up we didn’t have much materially. But I forgot sometimes that we were poor because we were rich in so many other ways. Ever since third grade, I was this person who was immensely concerned about: How can we make other people’s lives better?”

Phillips’ maternal grandmother, Evelyn Phillips, started her life working as a sharecropper picking cotton in Marion, S.C., in the 1940s. His mother, Ann Phillips, worked full time as a case worker and office manager for the Philadelphia Department of Public Works, then at night and on weekends, she added a second part-time job at Walmart and Caldor. Together they provided the means to move from North Philadelphia to a very desirable home in the northwest section of the city. And in the brick row house where the two women together raised Anthony and his sister, Latrisha, they filled their home with academic rigor, life lessons, and love. 

Latrisha earned a doctorate and is an executive at an elite private school. At the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Anthony is currently completing his doctoral dissertation on whether the Black church is still serving the needs of citizens of Philadelphia.

Phillips recalls how his mother first taught him about the realities of being a Black man in America after he went on a field trip in third grade to Baltimore’s Black Wax Museum. He walked into the replica of a slave ship hull and saw the wax representations of Black slaves, and went home confused. 

“I said, ‘Mom, I saw the craziest thing ever: Black people were enslaved. Did you know they were in chains?’ My mom said, ‘Well, that’s the way things were. And, in some ways, that’s the way things still are today.’ And I said, ‘Well, we’ve got to do something about that.’ So my journey to action came from what I call this African American history moment in my life,” Phillips said.  

Soon after, at his mother’s suggestion, Phillips became a junior deacon at his church, Triumph Baptist Church. While he was in middle school, he started a nonprofit called Youth Action with two friends to help youth get involved in social activism to encourage positive change in their neighborhood. All the while, he researched and read about the Civil Rights Movement. When he read how Martin Luther King Jr’s mentor at Morehouse College went to �ֲ���ý, Phillips decided to apply. 

At �ֲ���ý, he double majored in philosophy and African American studies (now Africana) and was a Benjamin Mays Scholar. During his junior year, he joined a �ֲ���ý exchange program to study at Morehouse College. As a senior, he completed a �ֲ���ý honors thesis detailing the conflict within the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee between Black integrationists and Black nationalists.

Along the way, he sought out and found other mentors at �ֲ���ý, such as Professor Emeritus of History Hilmar Jensen, and Charles Nero, the Benjamin E. Mays Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies.

Nero said Phillips was intellectually very curious. He attended and helped at many of the events hosted by the Multicultural Affairs office that existed at the time. It was no surprise to Nero when Phillips chose to double major in African-American studies and philosophy.

“I thought for him that was a really good choice because he wanted to know not only about the specific experiences of Black people and African-American people, but he also wanted to have an understanding about what it is that appeals to people about power,” Nero said. “I think that combination of studies allows him, at a personal level, to think about how to engage in power and how to use power for the benefit of Black people.”

After graduating in 2010, Phillips headed to Yale for a master’s in Black religion in the African diaspora. Just as he was getting started, his mother died unexpectedly from complications during an asthma attack. Phillips was just 21. Still, he forged ahead. 

“I think about the fact my grandmother was a sharecropper from South Carolina where she had to pick cotton in the fields. And my mom sacrificed with basically no money to provide food and resources for her kids. That inspiration helps push me forward,” he said. 

Their example kept Phillips focused on service. As he began doctoral studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, he joined the university program Student Bridges to help provide education and access to underrepresented students in western Massachusetts. In 2018, Phillips joined TeenSHARP, based in Wilmington, Del., to help prepare talented Black, Latino, and low-income students for success at selective colleges and universities.

And in hard times, he also found inspiration in his faith. 

“When I’m down and when I feel as if things are not going well, I also get my inspiration from God. The church is what gives me purpose every Sunday,” said Phillips, who worships at Salem Baptist Church, a historically Black church in Abington, Pa. 

“When I drive the church bus for the seniors, they are always encouraging me, saying, ‘You’re doing a good job, keep it going.’ Those seniors on that church bus, they inspire me, too.”

Nero pointed out that Philips is both a political leader today, as well as a leader in his Black church, which historically has been a significant, supportive community to Black people and African-American people in the United States.

“He’s a church goer, a religious person, a spiritual person, and he’s also made decisions to be in a majority Black religious situation. So I think that’s also about his commitment to Black people and recognizing the church as a site of power,” Nero said. “The church is a place that is empowering. It celebrates the community, and especially in the context of white supremacy, Black churches have been a place where Black people celebrate themselves.” 

In 2020, when Cherelle Parker announced she would vacate her city council seat to run for mayor, she encouraged Phillips to run for her seat representing the 9th district, where he grew up. Parker went on to win the mayoral race to become the first woman to lead Philadelphia in 341 years.

When Phillips won the 9th-district seat in 2022, it galvanized him. He vowed to improve education, neighborhood vitalization, and infrastructure — promises that yielded results. 

Immediately, he worked to improve the livability of the district by introducing legislation to ban tractor trailers from parking in residential areas in the city. When the ordinance passed, he introduced legislation to bypass the time-consuming studies needed to install speed bumps around schools, to slow traffic near schoolyards. That passed.

“My colleagues on the city council loved it so much, they asked about the rec centers, libraries, senior centers, and areas with vulnerable populations,” Phillips said with a booming laugh. “When you work with children, you have to have a whatever-it-takes approach to getting things done.”

This January, Phillips introduced legislation to ban ski masks so residents would feel safer in an area with high crime. It drew criticism on social media and was ridiculed for being a waste and unnecessary. That ordinance passed.  

“You’ve got to keep moving. I’m always looking for the next big piece of legislation,” Phillips said.

Having grown up in North Philly, Phillips said he knows intimately the kind of inequality that exists, even between neighborhoods a few miles apart. Step by step, he hopes to tip the scale toward those in need. 

Philips’ Instagram account — @phillipsdist9 — is full of the programs and the kind of change he seeks. One video from last January shows him at night out on a street in North Philly during a snowstorm looking for roads that need to be plowed. In it, he asks residents to call and report any. 

Another post shows him working with a group offering a free recycle drop-off for old electronics. Wearing a poncho while working in the rain, Phillips cheers in the post, “We get stuff done!”

The COVID-19 pandemic was raging worldwide when Grace Acton ’24 of Harvard, Mass., arrived at �ֲ���ý for her first year. Like her peers, she faced myriad pandemic protocols — universal masking, twice weekly testing, social distancing, and limited extracurricular fun. 

But unlike many of her fellow students, Acton was at high risk for COVID due to preexisting immune and respiratory issues, making for an awkward and sometimes lonely entry into college. So she reached for a pastime she learned in childhood: sewing. 

“I couldn’t really do much besides go to class and be in my room. So I brought my sewing machine with me and I had various sewing projects. It was nice to not just be bored and alone,” Acton said.

But what started simply as a way to pass time led Acton to a supportive community in the �ֲ���ý costume shop, to mentors who proved kindred spirits, to a senior honors thesis on �ֲ���ý’ historical clothing collection.

For this month’s installment of the “What It Took” series, which explores how �ֲ���ý people find resilience, we wanted to celebrate the joy in doing the things you love — whether it’s to help you get through winter, help you get through finals, or simply help you smile — with Grace Acton as an example.

To be sure, Acton is not unique in exploring a new hobby or pastime in the early years of the pandemic. Many crafts exploded in popularity during COVID-19. But what sewing provided to Acton outlasted the pandemic, giving her the resolve to make time for herself, and a deeper understanding of how important that is.

At first, Acton said, sewing was just something to do. “Then sewing became this really therapeutic hobby for me. It’s also very tactile, and something totally different from my very digital academic work,” she said.

Acton first learned to sew at age 8 when her mother helped her make drawstring bags for her gymnastic team. It was several years later before she decided on a whim to try her hand at making her prom dress by herself. Then COVID hit and canceled everything, including the prom.

But that navy gown turned out so well, Acton rode the wave of success and decided to create a historic dress in the summer before coming to �ֲ���ý. When she finished it, she wore it for photographs her sister Lily took at the public library in their hometown. 

Acton thought the ornate, brick Harvard Public Library looked so much like the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter movies, she goofed around in front of it in her period-style dress as her sister took photographs to capture the moment.

Then it was on to �ֲ���ý, for an unusual first year, with all those pandemic protocols.

During her first semester, Acton took the course “Fashion: A Survey of Western History,” taught by Associate Professor of Theater Chris McDowell, and wore a coat she had made to class. McDowell took one look at it and said Acton would be a valuable addition to the student team in the theater department’s costume shop. Acton joined the shop that winter and never left, fitting her shifts in around academics and sports as a member of the varsity golf team.

“At the end of it, I would just feel relaxed,” Acton said. “Everybody at �ֲ���ý has a busy schedule. I am not unique in this. Every student and faculty member is always go, go, go, go. And it’s nice to make time in the day for myself.”

Costume shop supervisor Carol Farrell is a champion of this philosophy, as illustrated at 2 p.m. each day when she stops work in the shop to invite everyone to gather for tea.

“We think of this as the good-vibe zone,” Farrell said. “Sometimes people just want to stop in because they need to not feel crazy. People who don’t work in the shop just come by saying how crazy busy they are. I feel we all benefit from spending a little time getting to know each other and creating a community. Because when is creating community not important?”

Acton called Farrell an important mentor at �ֲ���ý. Farrell, who is retiring in May, called Acton a rare gem, one who is skilled and creative and brings a zeal for solving puzzles. 

“Grace is super bright and super capable. She loves to figure stuff out,” Farrell said. “And she has the hand-to-brain connection. Increasingly people don’t have the hand-to-brain connection — except for working their phones.”

Several weeks after joining the costume shop, Acton showed her flair for creativity and problem solving when faced with a surprise lockdown due to a spike in COVID cases at �ֲ���ý. That came at noon on April 1, 2021, with an email instructing students to return to their rooms by 2 p.m. Acton had just enough time to visit a nearby fabric store. She had a plan.

The week before, the massive container ship Ever Given got stuck and blocked the Suez Canal for six days, launching memes all over social media. With material purchased in the moments before the lockdown, Acton sewed a green “boat dress” that resembled the container ship, complete with colorful squares on the top that represented the many containers. 

When she finished it, she went with her friend Diana Rodriguez ’24 of Houston to photograph the dress on April 6 by Lake Andrews. (At that point, contract tracing was completed and students were allowed to move about outside as long as they wore masks.) 

“The reason that the boat dress project sticks with me more than my many other lockdown sewing projects is the connection and collaboration with my housemates,” said Acton, who lived in a single room in Stillman House (which was converted to first-year housing during COVID).

“We were all stuck together in this scary and isolating time, but we all got a big kick out of this silly project and it was a great distraction. Sewing has helped me make connections with so many people at �ֲ���ý, and this was one of the first examples of that.”

Located just downstairs from the lobby of Schaeffer Theatre, the costume shop has sewing machines lining one wall, large tables for ironing, and, on one Thursday, a clothing rack full of hippie-style clothing on hand for a performance. It’s an open, bright, white gathering space with splashes of color throughout. Accessories from past theater productions hang on the wall. All around the ceiling, several black decorative crows look down from above, as if inspecting the hands-on work.

It’s where Acton enjoys what she calls her “focus time,” a place where she created many elaborate outfits for the college’s annual Trashion Show — simply for the fun of it.  

“What I love about working in the shop and the kind of space that Carol creates in there is it’s a place where I don’t look at my phone,” Acton said. “I feel like I’m always looking at a screen. Even my history work, which normally you’d think of as being such an analog field, even that work is super digital. And my texts come through on my laptop, and my texts come through on my phone. It’s really hard to disconnect from the screen.”

Acton came to �ֲ���ý envisioning she would major in mathematics and politics. But after taking McDowell’s fashion history class, she changed her mind. “I have always been a math brain and I love math,” she says. “But I particularly like the application of math to other things.”

And that’s how Acton landed on her unusual self-designed major, which draws from history and digital and computational studies. This year, Acton is completing a senior honors thesis that “applies math and data science to a historical topic,” in this case, a hidden-away collection of historical clothing.

For years, the theater department has accepted donations of vintage clothing, some dating to the 1800s, from well-meaning faculty, staff, families, alumni, and local residents. Outstripping the department’s ability to catalog the donations (or to use them in shows), the clothes ultimately filled box after box in storage. 

Enter Grace Acton, who is working to, as she says, “data-ify” this collection into a �ֲ���ý College Clothing Archive that will be accessible through both physical and digital archives.

With boundless enthusiasm, and co-advised by McDowell and Anelise Hanson Shrout, assistant professor of digital and computational studies, Acton has been taking an inventory of the antique clothing collection to decipher the era of each article of clothing and catalog all of it.

Since September, Acton has examined and dated around 180 pieces of clothing by assessing the kind of textiles and sewing techniques used in each one. “It’s turned out to be the most-fun project,” she said.

“The kind of work Grace is doing is work that people are trying to do all over the country in museums,” said McDowell, a clothing historian. “We’re both interested in having a cultural understanding of what sewing means, the idea of labor. When it takes you 40 hours to make something, you have a very different appreciation of that.”

As she finishes her senior year, Acton is still living the lesson she learned from her mentors, and from her time alone sewing. Research and academics should be serious and rigorous, but there should always be fun and time made for oneself.

Next fall, Acton will pursue a master’s degree in digital humanities with a focus on history and data science at Lancaster University in England — where she plans to continue sewing.

We began our “What It Took” series last fall to share stories from �ֲ���ý people about how they’ve learned to become resilient in tough times, with a focus on the skills and strategies that help them double down when the road gets rough.

What we didn’t know at the time is that how we tell stories of our life — how we narrate our experiences — goes a long way toward achieving resilience and psychological well-being.

Now we do, thanks to Jonathan Adler ’00, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Olin College of Engineering and a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School.

Storytelling is one of the oldest art forms, as well as an important tool that helps us make informed decisions and navigate the path ahead. 

Adler has conducted research on narrative identity, which is the idea that the stories we weave together about our reconstructed past, perceived present, and imagined future help us make meaning out of the things that happen to us. Adler recently shared his research with host Shankar Vedantam on the popular NPR show Hidden Brain where he explained how research shows that whether we look back at past events plays a critical role in our mental health. 

looked at 600 narratives from about 50 adults who came to a psychotherapy clinic for a wide range of issues, from depression, anxiety, and eating disorders to a simple desire to improve friendships and relationships. Adler and his colleagues measured the clients’ psychological well-being using standard indicators both before therapy and after each session — then they looked at the stories the clients told.

“What was really cool is that using statistical modeling techniques we found that the stories actually changed before people’s psychological well-being changed. It was as though people were narrating a new version of their lives, and then a week or two later, their well-being would sort of catch up with the new story,” Adler said. 

When Adler learned about this �ֲ���ýNews series, he wanted to help — but he encouraged us to seek out stories that don’t necessarily have a happy ending, that don’t end with a feeling of redemption. Those types of stories are powerful, too, Adler said, and they offer another narrative option for those suffering through difficult times.

“It’s a pretty profound thing to say, ‘I’ve come out the other side of this challenging thing, and it didn’t make me happy, but it did help me understand some things about my life and my values.’ That in and of itself is a worthwhile outcome,” Adler said. “I think stories that demonstrate the importance of searching for meaning push back against what I call the ‘press for redemption’ in our culture.”

As an example, he points to a study he helped conduct involving the parents of neurodivergent children on the autism spectrum and parents of non-neurodivergent children. 

One woman who stood out was the mother of a child with severe autism spectrum disorder. Her child required a lot of care and attention, yet when she talked about caring for this child, she told a story of a love that made her learn more about herself. Adler said these lessons are valuable.

“Meaningfulness and happiness are separate qualities we search for in life and both are important.”

Jonathan Adler ’00

“She would not say, ‘Having this child with severe autism spectrum disorder was a gift.’ That’s a socially appropriate story. And some people genuinely do feel like that, and that’s great. But that’s not the only option,” he explained.

“I think she would say, ‘This has been really hard. I don’t know that I would’ve asked for this challenge, but because I have had this challenge, I have learned things about myself that I might not otherwise have.’ And there’s a positivity to that. But it’s not necessarily redemptive. Meaningfulness and happiness are separate qualities we search for in life and both are important.” 

A decade ago, Adler began working with the nonprofit , which helps patients with all kinds of illnesses share stories of struggle. The organization hosts “Healing Story Sessions,” where patients (and sometimes medical providers) share their stories. These events are sometimes performed in small private living rooms, sometimes in large auditoriums. One that is held annually at Massachusetts General Hospital draws several hundred. But whatever the size of the crowd, Adler called them “transportive and therapeutic” for both the storytellers and the audience.

Like the story of the mother above, these sessions support the idea that our life stories are not always redemptive. “When we’re working with people who have terminal illnesses, they sometimes say, ‘Happiness is not an option for me. That’s not the goal. I need to make sense of what this is all about.’ And that is valuable in and of itself,” Adler said. 

When Adler attended �ֲ���ý from 1996 to 2000, he obviously didn’t know he would go on to do important research in a new field, but he knew he was passionate about both his psychology major and his interest in theater, directing three plays with the Robinson Players. Today he uses both disciplines in his work.

Twice a year at Olin, he leads a story slam where students, faculty, and staff tell short stories about their lives. He takes engineering and business students who have no experience in theater and helps them deliver thrilling performances. He also leads story slams at other colleges, such as Wellesley College, and has led them for major organizations. Adler also has become a playwright. (co-authored with Jim Petosa) premiered Off-Broadway in July of 2022.

An important element of the stories we tell is what psychologists call the “chapter breaks,” the moments in time where we draw the connection between the good and bad times, because if we see things as transitioning from good to troubling times, we can get stuck in that contaminative mindset.

Adler found this to be true in his own life story, which he shared a piece of on the Hidden Brain episode .” Adler explained to host Shankar Vedantam how, as a young gay man in the 1990s who had not yet come out, he spent his semester abroad in Australia hoping to learn more about himself in a new environment. But he just ended up lonely. 

After he returned from Australia, Adler threw himself into his studies. He graduated as one of the top students in his class and took a research job at Harvard University. He then applied to 10 graduate schools — but only got into one.

“At the time, it felt like a shock. I imagined that I might have more choices when approaching this next big chapter of my life,” Adler said on Hidden Brain. “If you draw the end of a chapter break with me coming back from Australia, it looks like good turned bad, it looks like contamination. But if you expand the chapter until I’m already ensconced in graduate school, then it looks like redemption.” 

As it turned out, the one school Adler got into — Northwestern University — was the research base of Dan McAdams, a pioneering scientist in the study of narrative identity, who became Adler’s mentor and, eventually, his scientific collaborator. Chicago also was where Adler met his future husband. 

“I look back at this turning point in my life with a profound sense of, first of all, gratitude, but also redemption,” Adler said on Hidden Brain. “What at the time felt like close to failure — that all my work in college, and all my ignoring of my personal life for the sake of my intellectual life had presented me with only one option — now feels like the universe trying to make sure I found my way. Within a year, I was having a more gratifying intellectual experience than I ever imagined, and I was in love.”

Now with his son and daughter — ages 8 and 10 — Adler is trying to be mindful of helping them narrate healthy stories, as he and his husband, Jonathan Lewis, raise them.

“I’m really thoughtful when I’m helping our kids recount their day to think about both the event and the feelings of the day. I want them to have as broad a sort of narrative toolbox as possible when they become narrators of their own lives,” Adler said.

On a 22-degree day in November, Erin Reed ’08 arrived at the Trinity Jubilee Center in Lewiston at 5:30 a.m. to help unload some 4,000 pounds of food from a Good Shepherd Food Bank truck. 

Two hours later, bundled in ski pants and a hoodie, the center’s executive director stood outside, patiently checking in people who came to collect cardboard boxes full of free vegetables, fruit, cheese, and frozen catfish to help feed their families. 

After another two hours, Reed finally came inside the soup kitchen to work on her laptop. She looked around for somewhere to sit, since a doctor was using the center’s only office to provide free health clinics. She grabbed a metal chair and set up shop in a large hallway where grocery boxes were being packaged, her lap serving as a makeshift desk as she typed away. It proved the perfect setting.

Behind Reed draped over a large stack of diapers hung a blanket adorned with rainbows and unicorns — a backdrop that stood in stark contrast to the difficult, life-altering social work Reed does here for those in need. 

“I’ve watched the impact of what Erin has done and what the place has meant to Lewiston as part of the fabric of this community,” said Kim Wettlaufer ’80 of Lewiston, the former director of Trinity Jubilee Center, who is still an avid volunteer. “There are a lot of demands. People come here with extreme circumstances. Their needs are great. It needs someone who is even-keeled, someone with a calm exterior.”

Reed is all of that, but her job is far from easy. So for the ongoing What It Took series, we asked her where she finds inspiration, strength, and the will to dig deep on the darkest of days. 

What did it take for Reed to serve the most vulnerable in our community in the early days of COVID when all of her volunteers suddenly quit because of the public health crisis, or following the Lewiston mass shooting during the shelter-in-place order, or during any one of Maine’s frigid winters the past 10 years?

When asked, Reed’s words evoke the idea of compassion, an awareness of the needs of others, and the desire to help those in need.

“I think of the quote ‘To whom much is given, much is required.’ To me, I’m someone who was born in the U.S., I’m healthy, I have a solid family. All that puts me ahead of 90 percent of the people in the world. I don’t know how, when you work in a place where everyday you see life is way more precarious than we like to think, how you don’t help,” Reed said.  

Part of that compassion comes from the fact Reed’s grandparents were Irish immigrants, coming to the U.S. from County Cork and County Tyrone. In Detroit her grandmother worked as a domestic worker and her grandfather at a manufacturing job in the auto industry. 

“The reality is no one else will do this. No one else will cook lunch for the community every day, no one else will do paperwork to get kids out of refugee camps. What we do is not fun or easy but we can’t just walk away,” Reed said. “It’s hard to go home at the end of the day. My clients can’t get jobs until I help them get a work permit. If their landlord is asking for a rent check and their kids are hungry, an hour of my time could change their life.”

Since Reed took over as the center’s executive director in 2014, she’s grown the center’s reach, increasing the staff from one to four full-time employees and the number of families the Center’s Food Pantry helps feed each week from around 100 to upwards of 200. The center now helps an average of 100 people a year find jobs and it annually serves a total of 4,000 individuals in the Lewiston area.

Moreover, next month Reed will announce the final stage of a fundraising campaign for the center’s new home after the nonprofit raised more than $2 million to build the 5,500-square-foot, $4.9 million center that will be located downtown on �ֲ���ý Street. [March 2024 update: The center has now raised $4 million, more than 80 percent of the project budget.]

When it’s built next year, the work of providing a food pantry, soup kitchen, day shelter, and resource center will move from the basement of Trinity Episcopal Church, where the nonprofit has rented space since 2001. 

“She’s taken it to a whole new level,” said Wettlaufer. 

Part of what led Reed to find her work at the center were her years at �ֲ���ý, before she graduated with a degree in sociology in 2008.

Reed found the Trinity Jubilee Center within 48 hours of arriving on campus when her AESOP trip went there to volunteer in the soup kitchen. Afterward, she would ride her bike down to help at the center in whatever way she could. Then she served the Harward Center for Community Partnerships as a student volunteer fellow, coordinating �ֲ���ý volunteers at the Trinity Jubilee Center.

Reed still works with the Harward Center, guiding student volunteers and those looking to job shadow. Darby Ray, the Harward Center’s director, called Reed a “transformative leader.”

“The culture on campus was that if you were excited about something, go for it. That was a great mindset to send us out into the world with.”

Erin Reed ’08

“She’s amazing not only because of the impact she and her team have, but because they are profoundly relational and humble. There’s not enough of that today,” Ray said. “Erin is one of the most humble and understated leaders in our community. She’s not about the fanfare or the attention. She’s about supporting the vulnerable members of our community.”

Reed said the �ֲ���ý philosophy to try, explore, and adventure inspired her to believe she could do anything she wanted. She belonged to nine clubs and organizations at �ֲ���ý.

“It was amazing being around people who were so curious and so engaged. The culture on campus was that if you were excited about something, go for it. Learn all about it, get involved, don’t be intimidated, just jump in. That was a great mindset to send us out into the world with,” Reed said. 

But when Reed reflects on her time at �ֲ���ý, she also calls her younger self naive for how she tried to help the world simply by joining in protests for social justice causes. In the end, it was a single fundraiser her junior year that showed her a better way.

A friend who worked in Commons was helping to fundraise for another Commons employee who was getting treatment for breast cancer. Reed joined the effort, helping to organize the sale of homemade fudge outside Commons to raise money for the sick woman. Not long after, while studying at a table in the dining hall, she looked up and saw the young mother whom she was helping, whom she had never met.

“She was still pretty sick. It was so sweet watching everyone come from behind workstations and fuss over her,” Reed said. “It really drove home to me what matters: Helping out other people in your own community. You can make a big difference by putting your energy there.”

Almost 20 years later, Reed lives that experience every day. Now it’s difficult for her to go shopping at Home Depot or the grocery store. Everywhere she goes, she sees people the center has helped.

“Going shopping can take a very long time,” she said with a laugh. “In every department there is someone who we helped get a job. They are so excited, they want to thank you. They want to tell you about their kids. That’s been a constant for years.”

In the end, what it takes for Erin Reed to charge into a 12- or 14-hour work day — an all-too common experience for her — is knowing herself and the kind of meaningful work she needs to do, work that embraces our shared humanity. 

“This is my place in the world,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t know how I could get up every day and do something I didn’t really believe in. If people come and ask you for help, how could you say, ‘No?’”

As an example, Reed shared a story of a local man who is on oxygen and lives in his car. He regularly comes into the center and asks for help, handing over his oxygen machine to Reed or others on the center staff so they can plug it in and charge it for him, usually while they are busy helping other clients. 

“He’s always very grateful. It’s a huge thing for him. He doesn’t have anywhere else to do that,” Reed said. “You don’t realize how kind and how resilient people are.” 

The first college year can be bumpy for anyone. Last year, when things didn’t start out that swell for Lexi Inger ’26, she would take a walk around Lake Andrews as a daily meditation, one that soon included a call to her supportive big brother, Joe Inger ’21.

The morning routine gave her resilience, strength, a kickstart to her day, and a daily dose of joy. 

The timing worked well: Joe was leaving the gym for his job in a drug research lab at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., right around when Inger was hitting Lake Andrews in search of peace and solace.

It helped talking with a sibling who understood her insecurities and drive for success. Joe shared many of the same traits while navigating his undergraduate years at �ֲ���ý. The 20-minute-or-so chats reminded Inger that she was stronger than she thought; reassured her that things would work out. It gave her hope.

“He was my rock,” she said.  

To deal with disappointment early in college, Lexi Inger chose to begin each day with a meditation centered on friendship and family. Those were good instincts. The daily lift from a sibling who knew her better than anyone helped her thrive. We should all be so lucky to have a Joe in our lives, a trusted friend we can call whenever needed; a touchstone who helps restore our faith in our abilities and our heart.

“I think I thought college would be an easier transition,” Inger said. “I had a very close group of friends in high school and Yarmouth was a graduating class of maybe 130. It was a big difference.” She thought she’d have instant friends in her residence. “Movies show it that way. And when I didn’t have that, I was kind of stuck.”

Inger’s oldest brother, Jake, is seven years older; Joe is five. She and Joe are much alike. Joe rowed in high school and at �ֲ���ý; Lexi ran track in high school and belongs to the �ֲ���ý running club. Both joined a cappella clubs at �ֲ���ý. Both chose bio-chem as their undergraduate major with a desire to pursue a career in medicine. 

“We’ve always been close. We’re similar. And so he kind of became this big support person for me. Even though his experiences were different, I felt connected to him,” Inger said.

After her 8 a.m. class three days a week, Inger went to the Puddle to walk and call Joe. She lived in Page Hall, so it was right there. Most days they talked for only 15 minutes. Lexi Inger appreciated how her brother wouldn’t “sugar coat” his experience at �ֲ���ý. When he spoke of how he struggled through some classes, he gave it to her straight. 

Just hearing the stories gave her confidence, the fact he lived through the same journey in the same place, and ended up better for it.

“I had moments where I was stressed about chem or I was stressed about other classes. It was really nice to hear his stories about it,” Lexi Inger said. “He’s very aware of what’s going on in my life. He’s very empathetic.”

Joe Inger, now in his first year at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, said �ֲ���ý made living through times of doubt and disappointment easier, because no matter what was going on, he felt a part of a community. He encouraged his sister to join and explore different groups at �ֲ���ý, as he had. 

“The community kept growing and growing. I’d leave my (residence hall) at 4 a.m. and not get home until midnight,” Joe Inger said. 

He also shared with his sister the lessons he learned at �ֲ���ý: like being open to change, and embracing tough times for the lessons they would hold. 

“I told her some people in your life are there for the rest of your life and others will come and go. Allowing things to change is always a good idea,” Joe Inger said. “The big thing I tried to give her was the idea, and I know it’s hard, but that if a situation is horrible, you can learn from it.”

Lexi Inger followed her brother’s advice. After joining the running club and an a cappella group last year, she looked for ways to become more involved with the Lewiston community.

When she took an education course that placed her in a Lewiston middle school to shadow the instructor, it opened her eyes to the communities, in particular the communities of new Mainers, just beyond campus. That led Inger to join the books buddies program through the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, where she read to students who are learning English at Connors Elementary School. 

“I have said this to my parents, I have said this to my friends, taking that class was one of the best decisions I’ve made at �ֲ���ý,” Inger said.

This summer, while working in Admissions as a tour guide 40 hours a week, Inger found a program at Lewiston Library that helps adults and high school students learn to read better. She also volunteered at Lewiston’s Jubilee Center every Saturday morning, helping people in need of food, housing, and career counseling. 

“I am working right now in a classroom in Lewiston High School and for all of the students, English is not their first language,” Lexi Inger said. “I was there this morning while the teacher had to Google translate almost everything. Most of the students spoke Portuguese. Another teacher I work with expects them to learn English. Wow, that’s so stressful.”

As for all the problem-solving strategies she learned from her brother, Inger found ways to share them with her classmates, and even on the campus tours she gave. 

“Joe is one of the topics I actually bring up on my tour. I think that Joe’s advice and guidance has helped me offer advice to prospective students and my peers with honesty and empathy,” Inger said. 

As it happens, the siblings’ daily talks also helped Joe Inger. He said talking with his sister the past year, reliving his own struggles, disappointments, and successes in college, helped crystalize for him just how �ֲ���ý kept him grounded, having people around him to learn from.

“It was really nice to have someone to go over what happened in my life and to think about how things went. It was a kind of therapy. I loved it,” Joe Inger said. “�ֲ���ý was an amazing experience. Even the struggles taught me a lot.”

Last weekend, Lexi Inger went down to visit her brother at his white-coat ceremony at Brown when he pledged his commitment to medicine and to advocate for patients. Some of Joe’s friends thought Lexi was his older sister. 

“She’s very smart and very intellectual. She can hold a conversation like no other. It was really fun to see her now as an adult who’s getting an amazing education and talking with other people about whatever. That was really fun,” Joe Inger said.