Maria Rengifo, Northeastern ACES Student Volunteer
At Little Brothers- Friends of the Elderly, we have a Highlight of the Week series where we shine a spotlight on members of the LBFE community including board members, older adults, volunteers, students, staff, CitySites (and more!) to learn about them and their experiences with LBFE. This week’s highlight is of one of our Northeastern ACES student volunteers, Maria Rengifo! Read below to learn more about Maria:
My name is Maria Rengifo and I’m a first year physical therapy student at Northeastern University. I’m 19 years old and I was born in Colombia. I came to the United States when I was 8 and I’ve moved throughout the years having lived in various cities in both New Jersey and Texas. My most recent move took place this past July to New Jersey which I now call my home. However, having spent a big part of my childhood in Colombia I do still consider it home and I identify as Latina. In my free time I enjoy listening to music of all categories both in English and Spanish. I also am a big time sports fan, and I enjoy watching soccer, baseball, and basketball as well as track and field due to my past participation in it.
At Northeastern, I’m a member of NU|ACES, a yearlong program in which we partner with an organization to allow us to be civically engaged in the community where we’re attending college, in my case Boston. I discovered LBFE through NU|ACES when I was looking for a partner and it was the opportunity to continue the work that I did with the elderly during high school in college that drew me to the organization. I got the chance to speak to multiple representatives from LBFE at networking opportunities provided by my program and I really loved the idea of getting to go to a site weekly and simply interact with the elderly to avoid common isolation that occurs, which I believe is important. I also saw an opportunity to reach more people through my volunteering at LBFE when it was expressed that they needed bilingual people, because I’m fluent in both English and Spanish. This year at LBFE I hope to be able to get to know those at my site well and be able to learn more about each of them while forming friendships. I’ve been at LBFE since October and I’ve already heard so many stories from the people that I’ve been talking to weekly and I’m simply excited to continue my service, hearing about the past experiences of those present at my site. I hope to grow from this experience and broaden my perspective of the world.
Don’t forget to check out next week’s blog to see who will be highlighted then!
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