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Claudia J. Gagnon

Biography

Although she says, "It takes so little to make a difference," Claudia Gagnon doesn't seem to be content with providing a little. As an officer in the Human Services Club, she has provided leadership for more than 20 activities, motivating others to become involved in college and community projects and fundraisers for alcohol awareness and child abuse prevention, and such events as the Children's Christmas Celebration, the annual Health Fair, the Mental Health Walk, and the Abuse Awareness Week initiation.

Claudia has had her struggles. She was a young single mother, later married, and then was abandoned by her husband (and left to raise three children on her own). Although "poverty was a constant companion," Claudia says she has "managed to cultivate a positive outlook and embrace life as an offer of limitless opportunity."

While working in a food store and offering support to the Art Department as a work-study student, Claudia made the dean's list with high honors, is a Phi Theta Kappa inductee, and a recipient of the Benedictine Scholarship and the Providing Resources, Opportunities, and Possibilities Scholarship. Claudia writes, "It has been my fortune to meet professors of humanities courses who helped me to define myself as a complete and unique individual with important thoughts and ideas to express."

Looking ahead, Claudia hopes to provide transitional housing for infants, have a home that is suitable for observing and evaluating potential adoptive families, work in the Early Head Start Program, and be a self-employed child care provider.

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