Volunteer Spotlight: Alexandria Hill

Aquarius and former Cabrini Green resident Alexandria Hill was looking for a place to volunteer her time last year when she found out about Cabrini Connections. After finding out that we work with kids from the neighborhood where she spent part of her childhood, she was eager to get involved and so, after mentoring a student, Shaquita, last year, she offered to become one of our Wednesday night Volunteer Coordinators! Alexandria has repeatedly gone above and beyond her duties as Volunteer Coordinator and has demonstrated a true dedication to our kids and our organization. For example, over the summer Alex helped us organize our Welcome Back Brunch and 3 day long Edgewood College Experience. Last weekend, Alex woke up early to present a well-attended seminar at our Tutor Training Conference about student behavior, how to build boundaries and manage expectations in mentoring youth.

Alex is a recent graduate from Illinois State University where she studied psychology, which she says has helped her a great deal in working with our youth, particularly her background in behavior modification. During her time in college she volunteered at the Normal Public Library for their Partners in Reading program. There, she offered reading help to elementary school students.

Alex is currently working as a Senior Representative for Primerica Financial Services where she helps families get out of debt and build assets. When she’s not working or volunteering her time at Cabrini Connections, you can probably find Alex at Pepe’s, her favorite Mexican restaurant in Chicago and/or reading horror and suspense novels by her favorite authors Stephen King and Dean Koontz. In fact, when she was younger, she wrote poems and short stories inspired by her favorite authors and wanted to be, in her own words, “the female, black Stephen King.” As much as we’d love to read Alex’s twisted prose, we here at Cabrini Connections are glad that Alex has decided to dedicate herself to helping others find their way out of poverty, rather than just scaring the crap out of them.