PAV is a “multifaith and interfaith student-led community with the mission to accompany [the] Bronx and greater NYC area neighbors in prayer, service, solidarity, and reflection.” (Courtesy of Carol Gibney for The Fordham Ram)

Fordham’s Pedro Arrupe Volunteers (PAV) hosted a series of volunteer events leading up to Thanksgiving and have more holiday-themed events planned for December. For November, they had an on-campus clothing drive with donations going to Xavier Mission and held two Thanksgiving turkey distributions.

PAV is a “multifaith and interfaith student-led community with the mission to accompany [the] Bronx and greater NYC area neighbors in prayer, service, solidarity, and reflection.”

Gilda Severino, administrator of Campus Ministry Operations, is one of the three Campus Ministry administrators that helps to oversee and coordinate the PAV — which has 35 students on the student council. The other two administrators are Carol Gibney and Donna Lajoux.

“I joined PAV after attending a few events last year where we went out into the community and I had an awesome time! I met Gil and Carol who lead PAV and they created an awesome and supportive environment that I wanted to get more involved in,” said Maisie McAdams, FCRH ’26.

McAdams added that volunteering is especially impactful because most of the volunteering is with long-held community partners.

“There’s a great opportunity to establish long-term relationships and opportunities for repeated service. This is great because when you stick with an organization you are better able to see its development and the impact it makes,” McAdams said.

Severino explained that the current volunteer work with Xavier Mission is because of a connection with a Fordham graduate and one of the former Center for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) directors, Roxanne De La Torre.

“A few years ago, she went to work at Xavier, so it was kind of a personal connection that got us working with them on a more regular basis,” said Severino. “Now that we have somebody there we can really talk to her about, like, what exactly do you need? How can we really be supportive of your community?”

PAV did two events at the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses for the turkey distribution. At Lincoln Center, they collaborated with the Ethical Society, and students helped with the distribution of food on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. One of the sources of food was 800 lbs of potatoes from Aramark, who donated half.

On the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, they also did a Rose Hill distribution event with Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

Severino added that one of their first programs in 2012 was a health and resource fair at St. Martin of Tours church. Since PAV is a faith and justice program, they wanted to focus on working with people in local churches since they are widely seen as sanctuaries.

The goal is to introduce the churches to community partners to form relationships where they can host their own health and resource fairs.

Currently, they are working with Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, whose pastor is also a Fordham graduate, Fr. José Félix Ortega. Severino explained that it used to be a mainly Italian congregation, but it is now almost entirely a community of Spanish-speaking immigrants.

In addition to the clothes being collected for Xavier Mission, Severino said that clothing is being collected for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, and she said she recently attended a conference that said 136,000 migrants have come to New York City in the last year and a half.

“So you can imagine when these people get off the bus with literally not a bag in their hand. It is cold in New York, we need to get clothing, shoes and other goods to them as quickly as possible,” said Severino.

Severino added, “We also have, unfortunately, a stable population of people who are houseless, and so they’re also looking for clothing. You can’t carry your winter coat with you all summer. And so they might get discarded and then in the winter, they need new shoes, new clothing, toiletries, you know, things like that. So the need is year-round.”

Overall, Severino emphasized that students often want to help people when they join or do PAV projects, but they do not realize that the most help is given to them.

“They are going to be graced by these wonderful conversations with people in our community. They’re going to be able to meet people who live right outside the gate. Fordham is very isolated in a lot of ways and there are a lot of, like, faculty departments that are trying to kind of break down those gates and get into the community,” Severino said. “We all have the challenge and the privilege of bringing students into the community for them to meet the wonderful Bronx, you know, the vibrant, wonderful people that live in the Bronx.”

PAV’s next event will be a holiday party at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church on Dec. 2 from 1-3 p.m. One element of it will be local students who have their own businesses that are being mentored by Gabelli students and will be selling their items. In addition, there will be food vendors.

“Fordham students, if you’re on Arthur, between 1 and 3 on Saturday, December 2, come out and support this community initiative,” Severino said.

PAV holds a numer of events throughout the academic year and all students are welcome.