Abigail Salvucci
Framingham State University
Abigail Salvucci, a third-year student at Framingham State University (FSU), is a student leader active in addressing issues of food insecurity and homelessness. As a sophomore, she led a group of 25 students to Washington D.C. for a week to assist local shelters and missionaries, as part of the Alternative Spring Break (ASB) program. She has also participated in an ASB trip to Memphis, where students worked with an organization to repair abandoned homes so they can be used by residents in need of housing. As Vice President of the Student Government Association, Salvucci has been researching ways to assist students on campus dealing with food and housing insecurity. While this work is ongoing, it has already led to the development of a program called “Weekend Bags,” which provides personal hygiene items to students who lack resources when the University is closed. Salvucci has also served as a youth mentor to children in local low-income housing complexes, assisting them with their studies and helping them develop future goals, like attending college.
Personal Statement
I learned from a young age that no action of change is too small to make a difference in the world. As a child, I began volunteering with my family to help others facing meal and housing insecurity, which truly sparked my love for helping others. From there, in high school, I began to regularly volunteer at local homeless shelters, and from that time, I did more than just serve. I learned real life stories and examples of the people facing these problems, and how it can happen in the flip of a switch to our loved ones. This motivated me to move further in my experience of serving, as well as to conduct my own research on how to find root causes of these issues. Currently, I have both orchestrated and participated within multiple service-learning trips focused on the critical systematic issue of housing and meal insecurity across the United States. Additionally, I have just completed my first round of examining the issue of housing and meal insecurity within Framingham State University’s own student body and plan to continue the investigation of this topic in order to present an action plan to our school’s executives to aid our students.
