by Katie Vasquez
One day a week, you will likely find Julia Goncalves in the office of Holy Family Church in Fresh Meadows where she is also a parishioner.
“I think my work strengthened my faith because I’m here interacting with the parishioners and I get to see the church in action. It fortifies that bond that I have here with Holy family,” said Goncalves.
But her day doesn’t end here, the St John’s University student heads to the Jamaica campus.
Catching up on school work as a government and politics major with a minor in French.
Although this is her second year, the Queens resident came in with enough college credits from Archbishop Molloy high school that she is technically a junior.
When doing her college search, the Catholic college always came up as her number one choice.
“At the end of the day, it was St John’s that kind of won out. All my family had gone there and I knew of the great opportunities. I knew how the staff was going to be very helpful,” said Goncalves.
St John’s has a focus on the Vincentian mission of giving back so Julia started volunteering at Zion Tabernacle Church food pantry in Ozone Park her first year and continued coming back.
“You know that you helped people and you get to see all of them, too,” said Goncalves, “I guess it’s more about the corporal works of mercy. it’s a very physical giving back.”
And she believes these experiences will give her a global perspective that will help after she graduates.
“I’d love for my future work to be giving back and to be leaving things better than I found it. Hopefully this job does it a little bit, but in the future I’d love for my profession with government and politics to emanate that,” said Goncalves.
The 19 year old plans to study abroad and complete internships as she wraps up the next two years.