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Class of 2009
College of Arts and Science
Majors: Economics and Spanish
Hometown: Atlanta, GA
While in high school, Jake was heavily involved in tutoring efforts at a local elementary school for underprivileged Hispanic students. After volunteering at the school for several months, he began to bring his classmates along with him, and soon was coordinating over twenty five volunteers to help provide students and parents with a much needed after school program. Jake also served as his high school’s Head Service Prefect and worked on several other initiatives including fundraising for organizations such as The Red Cross and CARE International and participating in a corporate philanthropy summer program.
Upon arriving at Vanderbilt, Jake continued in his passion for education through volunteering with Vanderbuddies, Pencil Project, and Project SHARE. He also discovered a passion for international service through working with Manna Project, an organization that helps connect college students with service opportunities both locally and internationally. During his freshman year, Jake served on Manna Project’s benefit dinner board and helped raise gains from $3,000 the previous year up to $15,500. Jake became increasingly involved with the organization and spent three weeks of the following summer living in Manna’s international site in Managua, Nicaragua. As a sophomore, he served as Manna Project’s VP (Publicity), helping to raise overall membership and seeing the first ever sellout crowd at the organization’s annual benefit. Jake also participated in Manna’s local volunteer opportunities and worked as his fraternity’s philanthropy chair.
During the summer between his sophomore and junior year, Jake and fellow scholar Andrew Preston spent eight weeks in Northern Ireland learning about the peace process and working on community development. Now in his junior year, Jake is excited about serving as Manna Project’s head of local community service efforts and hopes to increase membership while focusing the rapidly growing organization’s opportunities. Jake will also serve once again as fraternity philanthropy chair and has plans to beat last year’s record-breaking $15,000 toward the Muscular Dystrophy Association. As part of a new project, Jake will also work as Mayfield Project Coordinator in a living/learning lodge focusing on service opportunities with Nashville’s immigrant community.
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