Community Service in Quarantine

5/4/2020

Laura Hamlin Weiler ’00

Despite social distancing, Browder-Jones ’21 continues to feed her passion for serving others

How do you say “elbow” in Spanish? Ella Browder-Jones ’21 wants to help you learn.

At the onset of virtual learning, Trinity’s community service requirement was adjusted to allow students to continue to serve others while practicing social distancing. Students have done all kinds of work from home, including calling relatives on the phone, creating care packages for grandparents, cooking family meals for working parents, cleaning out attics, picking up litter, and sharing notes of appreciation with teachers and friends.

Browder-Jones took things one step further. She created a lesson plan, complete with video instruction and corresponding worksheets, that can be used for those who speak Spanish or those who know none. She teaches the Spanish words for many of the parts of the body, from head to toe, using her brother, Levi, a second-grader, for demonstration.

“Since school has been canceled, it has been my parents' responsibility to teach my younger brother, yet neither of my parents know any Spanish, which was a crucial part of his curriculum,” says Browder-Jones. “So, I took it upon myself to ensure that he was still learning essential topics for elementary students from home.”

Browder-Jones is a Spanish 4 Honors student who is a veteran at serving others. During her time at Trinity, she has performed more than 160 hours of community service. Many of those have been at St. Mary’s Hospital, where she performs a variety of tasks from discharging patients to directing people at the front desk and to entertaining young children while their parents receive treatment. “I started volunteering there and really loved it,” she says. “I found that there was something extremely rewarding about committing yourself to sharing a smile and making someone's day just a little bit easier.”

For the past two years she has organized and implemented a luminary fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club of Richmond. “My grandfather always sold luminaries to his neighborhood around the holidays and I wanted to mimic a similar project in my neighborhood,” she says. “This was really the jumping off point for my passion for volunteering.”

Browder-Jones seems a natural teacher, and this fall she volunteered as an intern with the extended day program at neighboring St. Michael’s Episcopal School. Does that mean that teaching is something she sees in her future? “Early childhood education has always been on my radar but I think my passions lie more in bettering my community,” says Browder-Jones. “I will most likely do something involving public service or medicine in the future.”

Whatever course she takes in the years to come, she knows service will be a part of it. “Serving others has always been important to me,” she says. Given the variety of ways in which she has already given back, there is a great chance she will be making lots of people’s lives a little bit easier.

Back

- Ella Browder-Jones ’21 Creates Remote Spanish Teaching Tool
  
  Ella Browder-Jones ’21 created an online lesson plan, complete with video instruction and corresponding worksheets, that can be used for those who speak Spanish or those who know none.

About “Connections”

Connections is a regular online column, written from the first-person perspective of Laura Hamlin Weiler ’00, Head of Community Engagement:

In this space, I have the privilege of sharing stories of Trinity students, alumni, and faculty and staff who are carrying our mission beyond the boundaries of campus. Many of these stories might not make the headlines, but they will illustrate how every member of the Trinity community has a unique path to discover, and the ability to make an impact on both the Trinity community and the world beyond.

I am fortunate to have been a part of this community since my own adolescence. I have been a student, a teacher, a coach, and an administrator, and in these roles I have witnessed the school’s growth and evolution through the years. We have grown in size as well as spirit.

Stories here will capture how seeds planted at Trinity have taken root and flourished into full-grown passions. You’ll also read stories of those in our community who bring their gifts from outside to help us learn. At Trinity, we seek to develop lifelong learners, and stories here will illustrate real-life examples of that beautiful symbiosis.