Students choose to go to St. John’s for a variety of reasons. Sports enthusiasts worship the basketball team; students with scientific know-how aspire to enroll in the pharmacy program; others are fond of the Catholic/Vincentian aspect of the University’s mission. Whatever the reason, some people simply know that they are destined to be a cloud of the Red Storm.
Adelyn Ruiz is no exception. On a fifth-grade field trip, Ruiz’s fate was sealed, and she was forever hooked on St. John’s.
“I knew that I was going to spend the next four years after high school at St. John’s,” Ruiz, a communication arts major, said. “I liked the campus, and I felt very safe ever since the first day that I came to walk around and see the school. I applied to different schools, but something always told me that I was going to end up coming to SJU.”
And she did. Upon graduating from St. Francis Prepatory, Ruiz came to St. John’s Queens Campus and got involved in a host of activities, including the Earth Club, Vincentian Initiative to Advance Leadership (VITAL), Habitat for Humanity and the school’s TV Club, WRED. If one were to look within Ruiz, he or she would find a deep-rooted love for campus involvement.
“Through TV Club I have found a new way to reach people on campus by using an important resource, such as TV, to inform students of different activities around campus,” she said. “Through all of my activities, I have learned a little bit more about my major and what I want to do career-wise. Like all of the other organizations, I have found friends for life that make this experience an amazing one.”
Ruiz’s source of motivation to take part in student activities and organizations is found in campus ministry. She utilizes her strong sense of service to help as many people as possible. Searching for her niche on campus, Ruiz attended a campus ministry retreat during the spring semester of her freshman year; the trip was a foreshadowing of her future role in the school.
She says, “I met wonderful people from all over the school, including some people from the St. Vincent de Paul Society who told me about what they did to help out in the community. I had always wanted to help people but did not know where to start. The St. Vincent de Paul Society was the perfect place.”
Having built upon that enthusiasm she felt on the retreat, Ruiz has devoted much of her time to campus ministry; her caring, almost angelic, presence is strongly felt throughout the school. Ruiz is currently the vice president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, as well as a music minister and retreat leader.
So who is this Alliance Mentor’s mentor? It is none other than God. Ruiz feels it is appropriate to give Him credit for all that is good in her life, for it was He who steered her in the direction of all of the “right people” of SJU. She is also very devoted to her friends and family who have supported her throughout the years and helped shape an important part of her beliefs, including the necessity for humility.
“Do what you can to help others, and do it with as much humility as possible. I truly believe that if you help others, you are helping yourself and that as long as you know that you do what is within your means to help out, you will get a great feeling,” Ruiz said. “No recognition, just the satisfaction that although you alone can’t save the world, at least for one day you might have saved one person. That’s all that matters. That is the power of one.”
