John Rodriguez ’97, G’09 experienced Assumption unlike many other students. One of 11 children, his family sustained itself on a paycheck he earned from his part-time job and his mother’s welfare check.
He commuted to Assumption each day by taking two WRTA buses from his home across the city in Great Brook Valley. A chance encounter with Brother Robert Beaulac, A.A., would provide a place
to store his bike during the days he replaced the lengthy bus ride by biking the five-mile trip to campus. Each day for two years.
“He told me I could leave my bike in his office but under one condition: I had to read for 15 minutes in a rocking chair that he had,” said Rodriguez. “This gave me the opportunity to polish up my reading and catch up on my classwork. This was important because Brother Robert made me feel accepted on campus, and because of people like him, I am who I am today.”
As a school counselor at Worcester East Middle School, Rodriguez, who received a certificate of advanced graduate studies from Assumption in 2012, knows firsthand the struggles students face, but empowers them with opportunities to lift them out of poverty. Instead of commuting across the city each day, he now spends his days helping others find their path. It’s something he learned the value of – and something that others did for him – as an Assumption student.
“Assumption guided me in my career by providing me the tools I needed to have compassion for others and to always lend a helping hand to anyone in need,” said Rodriguez. “The Catholic values I learned at Assumption have built me into who I am today. Whether I do volunteer work or work in my career, I always think that serving is a way of life, and by growing my Catholic faith, I have been able to accomplish a lot.”
Rodriguez credits his professors and people like Br. Robert and Allen Bruehl, director of the Academic Support Center, for his success. “They motivated me and were always there for me when I needed them,” he said.
One of his classes, The Problem of God with Sister Nuala Cotter, R.A., changed the course of Rodriguez’s life. Through this class, he met the Religious of the Assumption, who he said “became a family to me.” Sr. Nuala invited Rodriguez on a summer mission trip serving children in McAllen, TX, where he also met Sister Maria Isabel Galbe, R.A., better known as Sister Chabela. Over the next few years, Rodriguez worked with Sr. Chabela on mission trips and, when she came to Worcester, she and Rodriguez volunteered in his neighborhood, providing social services to families in public housing. When Sr. Chabela was assigned to help a community in Chaparral, NM, Rodriguez began bringing high school youth from his parish, Saint Joan of Arc, to Chaparral for weeklong mission trips “to help our students realize that helping others and valuing what they have are
important.”
He continued, “I do this work to give back to our youth something that I received as a youth. To value what you have and given to others without expecting anything in return.”
Rodriguez has worked in the Worcester Public School system for 13 years, teaching at the Safety Center and working with special education students before becoming a counselor, which he calls the “best profession you can ever have” because “you are making a difference in a young person’s life.”
Rodriguez has also served with Worcester Latino Dollars for Scholars since its inception in 1994, ultimately becoming its president. “It is one of my passions to help students graduate from high school and attend college,” he said. “I learned myself that the only way out of poverty is education.”
He is also the president of the Saints Basketball League, a league for youth aged 4 to 16 from the parishes of Saint Bernard and Saint Joan of Arc; board member of Worcester Comprehensive Education and Care; youth minister and confirmation teacher at Saint Joan of Arc, as well as a choir member; a board member of Casa Boricua, which promotes Puerto Rican culture in Worcester; and a former trustee of Quinsigamond Community College.
“I want to communicate or teach the children I work with that thereis hope,” he said. “That no matter what obstacles they face, there is always hope in God … and I will always be there for them. If I did it, they can also do it.”
