On Saturday Dec. 3, nine members of the St. Mary’s College of Maryland women’s and men’s rowing teams assisted with framing four new run-in shelters at Shiloh Manor, an equestrian facility in nearby St. Inigoes. In September, women’s team captain Nicolette Iacona ’22 reached out to Angie Draheim, academic program coordinator and departmental web specialist for the Department of Psychology, after learning at an introductory SMP meeting how Draheim and her 10-year-old daughter Lorelei volunteered regularly at Shiloh. Draheim put Iacona in touch with owners Kristyn Breeds-Williams and Cody Williams to see if there was an opportunity for a project that required many hands. They were delighted to have the teams’ interest and help.
In addition to Iacona, row team members involved in the build included Hayden Aberdeen ’24, Annika Drilling ’22, Elias Howe ’23, Adina Field ’23, Melissa LaCross ’23, Henry Russell ’24, Sydney West ’22 and Hayden Wolinski ’24. Iacona said in a note to Draheim afterwards, “I am very happy I was able to successfully organize the volunteer event at Shiloh! I very much appreciate you putting me in touch with them at the start of the semester. They are such good people and I was so grateful to have an opportunity to help them! … Definitely sad [that] we missed each other, but I know many of my teammates and I would definitely love to come back again and help out in the future, so I am sure we will be able to work together!” When asked if there had been some service requirement that prompted the interest in Shiloh, Iacona said, “I just wanted to organize a local volunteer event to help give back to the surrounding St. Mary’s community. There was no academically-specific incentive, we just wanted to be good people and good neighbors.”