Ashlee

• School: Stevenson University
• Major: Business administration
• Organization: My Sister's Place

Ashlee, a business administration major at Stevenson, worked for a full year over her sophomore and junior years at My Sister’s Place, making meals, providing clothes, doing laundry and assisting the people who came to the shelter for help. Some came from abusive relationships. Some were on drugs. Some seemed to be beyond any help that Ashlee and her colleagues at My Sister’s Place could give them. Ashlee says her experiences working at a Baltimore-area shelter for homeless women and children strengthened her as a person and reinforced her connection to the community around her. It also got her recognized by none other than the Governor of Maryland.

“It was hard sometimes to see the same people coming back over and over again, especially knowing how much help is out there for them,” says Ashlee. “To see women actually find a home and then lose it again because they got back on drugs, or violated their probation or whatever—that was a real challenge.”

But working there had its rewards, too. Ashlee was nominated for and awarded the Governor’s Volunteer Service Award, which she went to Annapolis to accept from Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich. Still, Ashlee says the greatest rewards came in seeing her work change people’s lives for the better.

“It was great to see people get things figured out,” Ashlee says, “and to see the ones who did get up on their feet and didn’t come back again. It was a good feeling to know that you’ve helped somebody.”