My name is Harold Peón Castro, and I am a sophomore at Harvard College concentrating in Human Developmental & Regenerative Biology with a secondary in Educational Studies. I was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I attended a small, Catholic K-12 school for 13 years. Growing up, I would devote a lot of my time to community service and really owe a lot of my development to the people I met and the lessons I learned through it. From tutoring at underserved communities and keeping folks at elderly homes company to translating for doctors and helping rebuild homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, many of my core memories from my formative years are not centered around the classroom, but rather stem from engaging with the community that surrounded me.

Before coming to college, I took a gap year in which I studied Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan on a full, federally-funded scholarship. I mention this because the time off allowed me to deeply reflect on what I had done thus far and how I wanted to lead the rest of my life. It would also be a disservice to the people I met in Taiwan and the conversations I had with them to not mention them as a fundamental part of my path in service. I recall profound conversations over traditional Taiwanese barbeque with friends from the other side of the world who had similar aspirations in which we would speak about the faith we had in our generation to make the world a better place and our desire to do that, even as young adults.

No one has a perfect upbringing, but I really would not change mine for the world. Service, inclusion, and community were guiding principles of my life prior to college, mostly because my friends, family, and educators placed them there, and by the time I stepped foot on Harvard, I knew I wanted to center my college experience around these same values.

I still recall the friendly faces I saw tabling for the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter (HSHS) in my first few weeks of college. They talked about how HSHS was the nation’s first entirely student-run homeless shelter and described it as an incredible way to impact the community, make friends, and claimed it had been transformative for them. As someone who had worked with people experiencing homelessness in high school, I could not believe that there was a shelter that was entirely run by students. I signed up to volunteer on the spot, and was doing my first overnight shift a couple of weeks later.

The Harvard Square Homeless Shelter was the first organization I joined on this campus, and it quickly became one of the highlights of my college experience. Overnight shifts were rough; spending 11 pm to 9 am at the shelter one night every week on top of social events, extracurricular activities, and academics took a toll on me, but I knew these few hours were contributing to something that was incredibly meaningful. For one night every week of my first year of college, I would walk to HSHS, talk to guests for a while, keep an eye on the space, sleep a little, and cook breakfast - it became something I looked forward to. I was an overnight volunteer at HSHS for the entirety of my first year, but knew I wanted to get more involved. So, I became an overnight shift supervisor in my third semester, and got hired as the Volunteer Director the following semester. Along with these leadership roles came greater responsibilities, more time spent at the shelter, and a greater sense of buy-in. I now care about our shelter very profoundly, and get the privilege of working with people who feel the same way.

As a Volunteer Director for HSHS, I am responsible for training, recruiting, and managing 250+ volunteers, most of whom are undergraduate students at Harvard or nearby institutions. I am not only passionate about this cause because of the necessity of volunteers to keep our shelter running, but also because I know the impact working at HSHS can have on someone. Many Harvard students will go on to be changemakers in society and occupy positions of power, and I believe that volunteering at HSHS can give these individuals a greater awareness of a community’s needs and how to best help. I know HSHS has shaped me personally and redefined my professional aspirations for the better, and I really believe that the student-run homeless shelter model provides benefits for the guests who stay at them and the students who run them alike.

Being at Harvard has led me to opportunities like becoming an EMT, directing the Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment program, and conducting research at a world-class hospital; however, the shelter is the one I hold closest to my heart and spend the most time on. Working at HSHS has exposed me to the most genuine, caring, and selfless people I have ever met and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to grow in service alongside such a wonderful community.

I will be at the shelter full-time this summer, which I know will be as challenging as it will be fulfilling, but I look forward to further working on something way bigger than myself.