{"id":139,"date":"2019-12-16T17:00:40","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faith-in-waterville\/?p=139"},"modified":"2019-12-17T18:29:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T18:29:33","slug":"lensky-augustin-alyssa-chesney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/2019\/12\/16\/lensky-augustin-alyssa-chesney\/","title":{"rendered":"Lensky Augustin & Alyssa Chesney"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"by Andy Blake ’23<\/em><\/p>\n

Alyssa Chessney and Lensky Augustin volunteer at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter<\/a> because, as Lensky says, they find it \u201cmeaningful to see the children\u2019s joyful faces when [they] walk in.\u201d Alyssa and Lensky both volunteer with Lives of Purpose<\/a>, which sends small cohorts of Colby students every weekday to spend time with mothers and children at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter. Students come to Lives of Purpose looking for a way to incorporate faith, spirituality, and reflection into their Colby experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lives of Purpose creates opportunities for spiritual conversation and reflection after volunteer sessions. Lensky says his freshman year mentor organized weekly dinners during which his volunteer group would reflect on \u201cthings that we saw, and things that we could do to make a better experience.\u201d Now a mentor himself, Lensky told me that he is trying to sustain this tradition of reflection. As the student leader of Lives of Purpose, Alyssa organizes monthly and weekly reflection sessions at which students can discuss the impact of their volunteering. These sessions help Colby students understand and draw meaning from their volunteer work.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lensky and Alyssa come from very different backgrounds. Lensky came to Colby from Salisbury, Maryland, while Alyssa grew up on the coast of Maine. Alyssa grew up attending church infrequently, and declared herself agnostic in our interview, saying she has not gone to church much during college. Lensky, on the other hand, grew up in a devout Christian household, and said that volunteer opportunities at Colby like Lives of Purpose have made his faith grow even stronger. Lensky volunteered often before coming to Colby; Alyssa did not. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Despite their different backgrounds, Alyssa and Lensky share the same passion for volunteering and improving Lives of Purpose. Lensky says he loves seeing \u201cfrowns turn into smiles\u201d when he volunteers. Likewise, Alyssa\u2019s face lights up when she talks about the kids at the shelter. Lensky and Alyssa are always looking for ways to volunteer more meaningfully. When I asked Lensky about how he has grown since beginning to volunteer with Lives of Purpose, he said he had \u201cdefinitely become less self-centered, and [more] aware\u201d of what is happening in the community around him. The reflection sessions have made Lensky deeply analyze how he can improve to be a better person. Alyssa also constantly evaluates the effectiveness of the work Lives of Purpose does at the homeless shelter. Alyssa voices her concern about her own volunteer efforts, wondering if they are always beneficial towards the children and mothers she aims to help.  <\/span><\/p>\n

When I ask Lensky if there is anything Lives of Purpose could do to be more effective, he tells me that the only space for improvement is to create more volunteer opportunities that can have more of an impact on the Waterville community. Lensky says that he wants to see Lives of Purpose expand to do \u201ca clean up day twice a semester\u201d and possibly hand out aid baskets in the spring when there is a lull after the holiday season. Lensky says the aim should be to make the Colby-Waterville relationship more \u201chelp-help,\u201d where Colby listens to the advice and wisdom Waterville has to share. Alyssa, too, <\/span>hopes to continue to build a cohesive community and to engage more thoughtful students in this hard but important work.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Andy Blake ’23 Alyssa Chessney and Lensky Augustin volunteer at the Mid-Maine Homeless Shelter because, as Lensky says, they find it \u201cmeaningful to see the children\u2019s joyful faces when [they] walk in.\u201d Alyssa and Lensky both volunteer with Lives of Purpose, which sends small cohorts of Colby students every weekday to spend time with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7980,"featured_media":344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7980"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":543,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/faithinwaterville\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}