Anice Schervise

I was in DC a couple of weeks ago on spring break and was on campus for another event, when I decided to drop in on the Sociology department to see who was around. I hadn’t been back in several years. I found Sam Marullo, and as we were talking, told me about the alumni newsletter and asked if I would write a little bit about what I’ve been doing since I graduated in 1998.

After leaving Georgetown, I took a summer job at DC Agenda, where I had done my Project DC internship senior year. At the beginning of August, I packed up all of my stuff and drove to Chicago where I began my first year of Amate House, the young adult volunteer program of the Archdiocese of Chicago. That year, I lived with 12 other full-time volunteers, living simply in intentional community. I worked with homeless and low-income individuals, families, and youth at Chicago Uptown Ministry, a multi-service social service agency. It was an amazing job in a dynamic community with the highest concentration of social services in the city. The following year, four of us from the house stayed on to open a second-year Amate House in Little Village, a Mexican neighborhood on the south-west side of Chicago, where I still live. Our jobs were with the cluster of 6 parishes in the area, mostly in social services and young adult ministry.

At the end of two years of full-time volunteer work, I decided to go back to school for my MSW, which I will finish in May! While in school at Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, I’ve changed focus slightly, as now I am doing research, legislative advocacy, collaboration-building and community organizing around alternatives to incarceration for women through the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.

At this point, I’m looking for work in Chicago doing advocacy, policy and/or research, hopefully with collaborations. I love the city and have a great community, so plan to stay. So, that’s the last four years of my life in a nutshell. I’m looking forward to hearing about everyone else!

Anice Schervise

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