April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
LASALLIAN VOLUNTEERS
Siena honoree loves service
Jolleen Wagner received Siena's Franciscan Spirit award last month. She heads the Lasallian Volunteers, a faith-based program of the De La Salle Christian Brothers that places individuals in long-term assignments in schools and social service agencies to serve impoverished children and families.
Ms. Wagner, who now lives in Washington, D.C., spent three years as a volunteer teacher in Chicago before starting her seven-year career with the organization.
The award took the 2004 Siena graduate by surprise.
"I had to sit down," Ms. Wagner said. "It was so nice to be back on campus in that context."
Catholic path
It was at Siena that she found a calling to service and made a decision to become Catholic. She had attended Catholic elementary schools and parishes and then public secondary schools. Her family had not had her baptized, but she remembers finding religion "exciting" as a child.
Siena's Franciscan values attracted Ms. Wagner, initially a chemistry major who switched to literature. She became involved in campus ministry and with Siena's Franciscan Center for Service and Advocacy, taking service trips to Philadelphia. A retreat sparked a desire to learn more about Catholicism.
"I found [a] home, faith-wise," she said. "Who can't fall in love with the Franciscan tradition? It speaks right to the needs of the world."
She entered a Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults program at Siena, enjoying "walking the path" toward becoming Catholic with people her own age. Ms. Wagner was baptized, received her First Communion and was confirmed in 2001.
A brother who directed the Franciscan Center encouraged her to become a teacher and to pursue service opportunities. The new graduate interviewed with Lasallian Volunteers and began work with San Miguel School in Chicago: teaching seventh- and eighth-grade language arts and reading, coaching girls' basketball and founding a public-speaking team.
'Round-the-clock
The school fed the students breakfast, lunch and snacks, collaborated with parents and followed up with graduates. Ms. Wagner lived, worked and prayed in community with other volunteers and brothers: "What I was doing for a living was actually from morning till night. You're sitting at a table with decades of wisdom in education - and then you can go into community prayer and lift the students up by name. It was a way of life."
Students were accepted into the school based on financial need and academic under-performance; most were reading far behind their grade level. Ms. Wagner said she learned that "love transcends everything else.
"Education is about relationships and community. If you have those two things, everyone changes," she added. "That starts to spread; that starts to have an impact in other places. I realized this is where I needed to be. Even the hard days had this exhale of blessing."
Ms. Wagner still returns to Chicago twice a year to visit with former students. In between, she calls and emails, "sharing the joys and challenges of life."
After her volunteer stint ended, Ms. Wagner considered several options: becoming a teacher, entering a master's program or working as associate director of the Washington-based Lasallian Volunteers program. She took the job with the Lasallians, which involved overseeing volunteers in 21 communities and 30 ministries in the U.S. She visited every volunteer and ran three retreats a year, including one in the Adirondack Mountains.
Service-focused
Today, Ms. Wagner is director, and also chairs the regional Young Lasallians committee. She does volunteer work in her free time and helps with young adult events at her parish.
She focuses a lot on promoting vocations, which she terms "God's call for people. We have all these young people who are trying to figure that out. I tell them, 'You are ideally discerning for the rest of your life, and that's OK.'"
Having become Catholic as an adult helps her relate to young volunteers, who are at all different stages in their faith: "I am encouraging them to embrace what's good and what's hard. I think we have better-formed Catholics that way."
She loves Washington, but misses New York State and hopes to return to the classroom - but "not on my time; on God's time. I believe that I'm right where I need to be right now."[[In-content Ad]]
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