IN MY OWN WORDS: SPRING BREAK SERVICE TRIP
Reflections by Rachelle Manzi ’24 and Isha Bhagat ’25
When Rachelle Manzi ’24 and Isha Bhagat ’25 returned from their spring break service trip to the Mustard Seed Communities (MSC) in Jamaica in March 2024, they came home with new perspectives. MSC began in 1978 as a home for children with disabilities on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica. Today, Mustard Seed Communities provides loving and lifelong care to over 600 children and adults with disabilities, children affected by HIV, and young mothers in crisis across Jamaica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Here, Manzi and Bhagat reflect on their Regis service trip experiences—in their own words.
RACHELLE MANZI ’24
Biology + Pre-Med
Love. This is the one word I would use to describe my service trip to the Mustard Seed Communities with the Center for Ministry and Service.
I have always wanted to help people, and that is my whole goal and why I want to become a doctor. Volunteering has always been an important part of my life because I think you should always give what you can—whenever you can.
So when I heard about the service trip opportunities offered at Regis, I thought it was the perfect way to spend my spring break by helping others.
I was blessed to have the opportunity to travel with 17 Regis students and staff on a service trip to the Mustard Seed Communities (MSC). The trip meant the world to me and has changed my life in more ways than you can imagine.
At the Blessed Assurance Mustard Seed Community in Jamaica, we met the most kind, passionate, dedicated, and loving staff and had our lives touched by some of the most joyful and impactful residents.
Some of the daily work projects we took part in included landscaping, cleaning trenches, and painting a mural where we had the chance to leave our handprints on the entrance wall. We also had a lot of time to spend with the residents by assisting with meals, taking part in daily prayer and devotion, having many dance parties, playing musical chairs and bingo, and we even had the chance to celebrate many of the residents’ birthdays with a party at the end of our week!
I made a special connection with one resident, Jada (pictured at right with Manzi), who changed my life forever. In the mornings we would have devotion and as Jada was waiting for someone to wheel her to the Chapel, she would ask “Where’s Rachelle?”
I noticed when I walked into a room her eyes would light up, she would point to me, and smile. Jada was not a huge conversationalist, but she loved a good hug. Jada showed me to always be compassionate and kind, and to always seek the good in others, as she did with me. It is amazing to think that within just a few days, we had created a special bond that will last a lifetime—one that I will cherish forever.
We also had the opportunity to visit a second Mustard Seed location in Jamaica, Jacob’s Ladder, which is dedicated to providing lifelong care to adults with disabilities and helping them to live and work together as one.
We were reminded at Jacob’s Ladder by Monsignor Gregory, the founder of Mustard Seed, that some people have everything and do nothing with it. We must open our minds to the possibility that we are meant to do so much more than we could ever imagine and just go for it.
After graduating in May from Regis, I plan to obtain my medical degree and become a practicing physician. I look forward to continuing my service and volunteer work by traveling to Mustard Seed Communities around the world to provide free medical care to residents.
Through reflection of the values of the Sisters of Saint Joseph, embodied in Regis and seen within Mustard Seed Communities, it has become clear that these values will serve as a guide in the kind of caring and selfless physician I want to become. I plan to continue to love and serve the dear neighbor without distinction wherever my journey takes me.
ISHA BHAGAT ’25
Nursing
The opportunity to attend the Regis service experience in Jamaica during spring break was one that I initially did not expect would impact me so deeply.
I have been asked many times why I was taking part in this service experience, and the answer I have come to is that I was looking to leave my comfort zone. Inspired by a book called “The Comfort Crisis,” I have been in a mindset of seeking the unknown and experiencing the world that is outside the comfort of the life I’ve lived thus far.
Staying at the Blessed Assurance location gave me what I was looking for and so much more. I met some beautiful souls like our kind and accommodating mission representatives, the loving nurses, or “aunties” who cared for the residents as they would for their own children, and of course, the residents who were beaming with such radiant joy from the very first night we met them.
The overwhelming happiness of the residents simply because we were there— dancing and singing with them—felt like the most significant gift anyone could ask for. I gained a deep appreciation for the lives of the residents and staff. It made the other things like limited water for showers or the lack of service or Wi-Fi, feel so insignificant.
Monsignor Gregory explained to us that the Mustard Seed Communities started with very little, and now is the home to over 600 residents. Mustard Seed is proof that great things can come from nothing, and it made me think about what could come from everything that I have.
As a junior in the Young School of Nursing at Regis, I’ve always had the goal of being a nurse practitioner, but I have yet to define what I want my future to really look like. If I learned one thing through this mission experience, it is that I am scared to be comfortable. One of my fears is that I will find a comfortable job as a nurse, and I will never have the motivation to go further and push my limits and accomplish my aspirations. I know it is easy to be safe in my comfort.
Spending the week with the residents, playing games, helping with feedings, even painting murals to brighten the community was such a touching experience. I helped the nurses with vitals each morning, assessing the less-than-ideal conditions of the residents’ breathing patterns and the lack of necessary medications, and I saw that there was nothing to be done about it.
I talked with the aunties, who explained that for some of the residents, there wasn’t money for diagnostic testing, and if there was, it may not be a priority. To experience these residents living with the limited medical attention and support that they can get, yet being so contagiously happy and joyful and loving taught me what I was looking for—it taught me how to live.
I don’t want to be comfortable; comfort is not what matters in life. I want to become a nurse practitioner; I want to go where my schooling can help people the most. I want to take everything that I am so lucky to be given and make something bigger of it. I know I will be going back to Mustard Seed, and I want to thank the residents for showing me that we live on this beautiful earth full of love and life with so much to appreciate.