Carolina Hernandez ’16G knows that big things can start from small beginnings.
“The Community Service Office (CSO) at Lehigh was officially launched in 1996, so when I started in 2001, it was relatively new. We didn’t even have an office. We actually took over a storage closet,” recalls Hernandez, assistant dean and director of community service.
Today, from CSO’s new offices in the Clayton University Center, Hernandez supervises a program that involves about 2,700 students annually providing service to community partners on Bethlehem’s South Side and beyond. On April 29, the Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania will recognize her contributions to the community at its “Take The Lead Lehigh Valley” event. The event honors local women leaders who are positive role models for girls.
The breadth and scope of service provided by Lehigh students under her leadership led to the well-deserved recognition. Hernandez accomplishes this because of the commitment she inspires in students.
Graduate assistant Alexis Hampton ’23, who graduates in May with a master’s degree in public health, says, “Carolina really hones in on the fact that we could be the change makers.”
“Carolina will move mountains to make sure that every student, every person that she encounters, is […] appreciated and loved and respected.” — Alexis Hampton ’23
More than 200 Lehigh students tutor children in South Bethlehem schools, including in the homework clubs the university sponsors at Broughal Middle School and Fountain Hill and Donegan elementary schools. Homework club kids also come to campus for Kids Night Out events featuring educational activities and programs for their families. The Holiday Hope Chest involves students, faculty, and staff in filling the wish lists of homework club families.
Hernandez’s office also sponsors more than 100 other events each year. They include initiatives such as providing a meal at Victory House, a South Side shelter, and weekly Feel Good Fridays, when students work with local nonprofits. Then there are larger endeavors, such as Hernandez’s favorite: The Great South Side Sale. She and her team collect furniture, clothing, and students’ other cast-off items during the move-out at the end of the academic year. Items are sold at a garage-sale-to-end-all-garage-sales on the first Saturday in June.
“There’s something just magical about that date,” Hernandez says. “We not only have saved a bunch of stuff from going to landfills, but we’re also able to give some pretty incredible items to the community at under thrift store prices. And then that money goes right back into the community by paying for the programming we do.”
A Caring Community
Jon Leight ’23, who worked with Hernandez as a student coordinator, marvels at all she accomplishes. “I think that speaks volumes to the culture Carolina builds,” says Leight, a student in Lehigh’s Master of Education degree program in behavior management.
Leight notes that the culture in Hernandez’s office, which combines a family feeling with a commitment to serve, is a big part of why he chose to attend Lehigh. His older brothers, Nicholas ’16 and Joshua ’11 ’12G, both worked with Hernandez, and he accompanied them to service events from a young age. “The CSO is what really drew me to Lehigh because I knew [...] I would have a home there and a place to go,” Leight says.
Serving the community was part of Hernandez’s family’s core values when she was growing up in Miami, Florida. She remembers participating in book passing at age four while helping the Miami-Dade Public Library move locations. As an undergraduate at the University of Miami, she helped to start the organization Students Together Ending Poverty (STEP), working with the city’s homeless shelters.
She delayed graduate school, instead joining AmeriCorps VISTA, a national service program addressing issues such as public health, education, and the environment. She was assigned to work with Lehigh and the former South Bethlehem Neighborhood Center. When her VISTA stint ended, she was hired full time by the university. She later earned her master’s degree in educational leadership at Lehigh.
To grow Lehigh’s service initiatives, Hernandez prioritized partnerships with local nonprofits, identifying needs and ways that Lehigh students could meet them. The emphasis on partnership is key. “[Carolina] always said, ‘We don't do things for the community: We do it with them,’ and I use that in my job right now,” says Allison Graham ’22, an early childhood mental health associate for the Early Care and Learning Council, working with early childhood programs across New York State. Graham was a community coordinator at Lehigh for four years.
Student Led, Student Centered
Hernandez aims to make community service part of students’ lifestyles — a commitment she hopes they continue after graduation. “It means being engaged and picking an issue that you’re passionate about,” she says. She emphasizes hers is a student-led office. Student coordinators and graduate assistants plan and run all volunteer events under her supervision. Most work there four years — or longer.
Caroline Mierzwa ’23 ’24G likens working in the office to following a curriculum that progressed from her first year through graduate school.
“You learn there are problems, but then we consider what we are going to do to address them,” says Mierzwa, who is teaching in Spain as a U.S. Fulbright Scholar. “Then as you move through the years, they teach you, and you learn from your older peers how to lead a program.” In Mierzwa’s case, that meant coordinating the America Reads America Counts tutoring program — which complemented her career goal to become a teacher.
Hernandez says the most valuable lesson she wants students to take with them is one that also guides her in her work. “My goal is that they learn to prioritize and value community and make that a part of their core values,” she says.
