Exploring Service and Community
An Interview with Director of Community Service Dr. Marc Lavallee
For new students and readers, what is My Brother’s Keeper?
My Brother’s Keeper (MBK) was founded by Jim and Terry Orcutt in Massachusetts in the 1990s who looked at the needs of those around them and asked how they could make a difference. The goal has always been to spread love and hope while supporting families and communities in need. My Brother’s Keeper welcomes anyone seeking support without requiring them to meet a particular standard of need
For us at Portsmouth Abbey, My Brother’s Keeper provides an opportunity for students to connect what they learn in the classroom with meaningful service beyond campus. Students learn about poverty, human dignity, and Catholic social teaching in class, and then encounter those realities directly through their work with people in communities across Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
What sets My Brother’s Keeper apart from other volunteering organizations?
My Brother’s Keeper is a great partner because education is a central part of its work. From our perspective, it allows students to participate in direct service while spending meaningful time with the people they are serving. It is not simply about volunteering hours.
Engaging communities beyond campus is a priority. Students have the opportunity to deliver in places such as New Bedford, Fall River, and Westport to understand the realities facing people across the region.
What works particularly well with My Brother’s Keeper is the combination of human connection and education. The staff regularly turn ordinary experiences into teaching moments. For example, students might deliver a piece of furniture to someone. Along the way, an My Brother’s Keeper staff member might explain the realities behind the situation: how people can become trapped by predatory lending, how someone might rely on a friend for furniture, or how difficult it can be to be afford basic necessities.
Those conversations help students understand the circumstances people are living in rather than simply seeing the result. My Brother’s Keeper helps students ask questions and understand the larger systems behind poverty.
How can students get involved?
Besides taking the class, students can participate through our Community Service Afternoon program, which takes place every Wednesday. My Brother’s Keeper also hosts a large Christmas drive each December. Volunteers receive family wish lists, shop for gifts, and wrap them before staff and volunteers make the deliveries. Although the drive takes place during winter break, Abbey staff, faculty, families, and friends have stepped up in recent years to help represent the Abbey in the wider region.
There are many ways for students and members of the Portsmouth Abbey community to get involved. The goal is to create more opportunities for students to serve, learn, and build relationships with people beyond campus.
What do you see in students from the beginning of the year to the end?
The experience is really about what it means to create a community and understand that our lives and well-being are deeply interconnected. Students begin to see service not simply as something they are required to do, but as a way of putting what they are learning into practice.
One of the most important parts is building relationships with people in the communities we serve and learning from one another. Students can study poverty, human dignity, and social justice in the classroom, but service gives them the opportunity to listen, connect, and understand these ideas through shared experiences. It reminds students that service is not simply about helping someone else; it is about recognizing our shared humanity and learning from one another.
How vital are partnerships like this within the Portsmouth Abbey community?
I think this is one of the most important things we do. Service should be a significant part of a student’s education, and I believe there should be a service requirement at the school in a way that works within our schedule.
Our students are talented and capable. I want to see those abilities directed toward people who need their help. One of the things students enjoy most is seeing what they are learning put into effect. They often ask, “How am I ever going to use this?” Through service, they can see that they can use what they are learning now. They begin to understand that they can contribute to the world, and that is deeply needed.
How does My Brother’s Keeper uphold and support Portsmouth Abbey’s mission?
My Brother’s Keeper is vital to our mission of helping young men and women grow in knowledge and grace. While students study the Catholic social principles of human dignity and solidarity in the classroom, this program gives them the opportunity to see how those values apply in real life. By witnessing firsthand how the realities of poverty can affect a person’s sense of dignity, our students gain a deeper, more compassionate understanding of the world and live out their faith through meaningful service.
Even small practices reinforce this. My Brother’s Keeper uses unmarked vehicles rather than large signs identifying the organization. When we arrive home, our first stop is to meet the recipient and speak with them. We ask about their day, their preferences, and what would make the situation work best for them. The goal is for people to remain the directors of their own lives. Students learn to ask questions, listen, and respect the choices of the people they serve.
We also teach cultural competency: how people with different experiences and backgrounds can collaborate and work together toward a common good. That connects directly to the Church’s principle of solidarity.