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Serving with Purpose: Catholic Noles Students Give Back This Summer
While most of campus quiets down during the summer months, a dedicated group of Catholic Noles students is still showing up — not just for class, but for their neighbors.
Through service opportunities at the Kearney Center, Casa Calderón, and Florida Cares, students are discovering that service is more than a summer activity. It is a way to build community, encounter Christ, and put their Catholic faith into action.
For Zack Warner, Catholic Noles’ student service ambassador, that consistency matters.
“We’ve had good participation during summer A,” Zack said. “I’m very surprised that people came to these events, because when I walk around campus, I see nobody. So I’m really excited about what this is going to bring in the fall and the rest of the year, if we can get good numbers now.”
This summer, Catholic Noles students have served at three local sites: the Kearney Center, a homeless shelter just minutes from campus on Pensacola Street; Casa Calderón, a low-income elderly apartment community located next to the church; and Florida Cares, a construction-based ministry that helps families facing medical hardship, financial struggle, or other serious needs.
Zack’s role is not simply to organize occasional volunteer days. He is working to build a culture of service that students can rely on — one where service becomes a regular part of Catholic Noles life.
“My role is to set up these opportunities for students to come and do it consistently enough where it becomes a pattern of service,” Zack said. “I also have a team of six service team members, and I’m responsible for training them to lead as well.”
That kind of invitation is already making a difference for students like Katie Ciaccio, a sophomore chemistry major who first got connected to Catholic Noles service opportunities after seeing Zack’s announcements and hearing about service through friends.
“I’m not really doing anything on Saturdays,” Katie said. “So this seemed like a great opportunity to meet some new people, spend time with people I already knew, help the community, and feel good about helping the community.”
This summer, Katie has served with Florida Cares and at the Kearney Center. Through Florida Cares, she helped build a front porch and steps for a man who needed safer access to his home. For nearly six hours, students and volunteers learned to use tools, worked side by side, and saw the project through to completion.
The most memorable moment came at the end.
“His face just lit up when he walked outside on his new porch for the first time,” Katie said. “It was awesome to see someone so happy, and I’m so grateful that I could be a part of that.”
For Vanessa, a rising sophomore studying social work, service has been part of a larger journey of discovering the Catholic community at Florida State. A commuter student from the Crawfordville area, Vanessa said coming to FSU and finding Catholic Noles felt like entering a whole new world.
“In high school, there weren’t any Catholics there, so I kind of felt like I was the only one,” Vanessa said. “Then coming to FSU, I saw people my age walking into the church, and I was like, ‘Whoa, I’ve never seen that before.’ Having this community was life-changing.”
At first, Vanessa said, service was simply a way to get involved and spend time with other Catholic Noles students. But over time, something changed.
“Once I started volunteering, it became more of an interior transformation,” she said. “I noticed that I was more passionate about the work that I was doing and more compassionate toward other people.”
That transformation continued as she became part of the Catholic Noles service team. When Zack invited her to join, she was initially nervous to commit. But the more she served, the clearer the call became.
“As I volunteered more, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what I’m meant to be doing,’” Vanessa said.
At the Kearney Center, Vanessa said students respond to whatever need is present that day. Sometimes that means packaging food. Other times, it means organizing clothing or speaking with residents. For Vanessa, the most meaningful part is the connection.
“You always hear really cool stories and meet people,” she said. “That connection throughout volunteer work is the most important thing — especially with the people you’re serving and the people you’re serving with.”
One interaction at the Kearney Center stayed with her: a woman who spoke honestly about her circumstances while still showing faith, acceptance, and peace. Vanessa also remembered speaking with an older man at Casa Calderón who treated everyone around him with dignity and kindness.
“It was really eye-opening,” Vanessa said. “These people are not that different than me. They’ve gone through hardships and difficulties. Every time I go out and meet people, my expectations are transformed.”
Katie described a similar experience. Service, she said, helps students move beyond the university bubble and connect with the broader Tallahassee community.
“When you’re in college, you kind of only interact with people who are also in the university sphere,” Katie said. “So it’s nice to branch out and actually get to know people from the community.”
That encounter with others has deepened her faith.
“As Catholics, we have a duty to help people out,” Katie said. “Jesus helped so many people, especially people who were seen as less at the time. Doing service projects helps you get closer to Jesus.”
At the Florida Cares project, that connection felt especially tangible.
“We were doing some carpentry, and Jesus was a carpenter, so it was a really cool connection,” Katie said. “A way that we can share our faith is through doing these acts of service to other people.”
Zack sees that same connection at the heart of Catholic Noles service.
“Service is our action in the Catholic faith that proves it’s real,” he said. “Jesus said he sees himself in the least of us. Going to service events is going to eventually form your heart, because you’re going to realize that these are people made in the image of God, no matter what financial situation they’re in.”
For Zack, service is not just about completing a project or filling volunteer hours. It is about formation. It teaches students to see the dignity of each person and to love as Christ loves.
“Service teaches people how to love rightly,” Zack said. “That means loving people as they are, meeting people where they are, and just loving them.”
He has also been moved by the witness of those who lead the service sites. At Florida Cares, Zack was especially struck by Eric, who helps lead the ministry and uses his skills in manual labor to serve families in genuine need.
“He’s just so joyful when he goes out — every weekend, consistently,” Zack said. “It just shows that happiness doesn’t come from the material things of this world.”
Katie noticed that same joy among the people students served.
“Some of these people that we help out, they don’t have a lot of material goods, but they seem just so happy,” she said. “They have the joy within them, and I think that’s a great reminder that material goods and everything you have are not the end all be all.”
For Katie, service has become a way to nourish her own soul while helping others.
“These service projects really do feed your soul,” she said. “It can be uncomfortable at first, but it’s worth it.”
For Vanessa, the impact has been deeply personal as well.
“Every time I go to a service event, I’m being more deeply converted within the faith,” she said. “I’m growing in my relationship with God every time I choose to say yes to a service opportunity.”
She said volunteering with Catholic Noles helps students take what they learn in Bible studies, formation nights, and talks, and live it concretely.
“It directly teaches you how to put your faith values into practice by going out and doing something and serving,” Vanessa said. “If I didn’t have volunteer work, I feel like a vital aspect of my faith would be missing.”
The students are also discovering that service builds community among them. Katie served at the Kearney Center with Zack and Vanessa and said the experience helped deepen those relationships.
“There’s just something about doing it together that you wouldn’t get if you were doing it alone,” Katie said. “We’re growing together, and we’re helping these people together. It really creates a bond.”
That bond is especially important during the summer, when fewer students are on campus and many are looking for ways to stay connected. For students who may be interested in serving but nervous about showing up for the first time, the team offers a simple message: come anyway.
Katie understands that hesitation because she felt it herself.
“I was in the same boat for my first service project,” she said. “I didn’t really know anybody. I didn’t really know where I was going.”
But once she arrived, she found a welcoming group of students who were happy to serve and eager to connect.
“It’s always going to be a little bit scary when you go outside your comfort zone,” Katie said. “But once you get there, everyone is just so happy to be there. We all want to make friends, too. We all want to get closer to each other.”
Vanessa echoed that encouragement.
“Embrace that initial nervousness that you have,” she said. “You’ll realize that you have so much more capacity to love within you through service.”
Zack makes a point of walking first-time volunteers through each service site, explaining the mission, what to expect, and why the work matters. His hope is that students not only serve once, but begin to see service as a regular and meaningful part of their Catholic life.
As Summer B approaches and new students begin arriving on campus, the service team is already planning ahead. Zack hopes to involve incoming freshmen, continue building consistent opportunities, and form more student leaders who can help carry the work forward.
“The primary purpose of my team is to really form up these students to become leaders,” Zack said.
For donors, parents, alumni, and friends of Catholic Noles, Zack said the message is simple: students are not only talking about the Gospel. They are living it.
“When students keep coming to service events, their hearts are being formed like Christ’s heart,” he said. “They’re seeing the poor as actual people who have emotions and have a soul, and they’re learning how to love other people more rightly.”
And in a time when many young people are searching for meaning, Zack believes service offers something deeply needed.
“Service gives students purpose,” he said. “And so many people today are looking for purpose.”
