First Runner-Up
Stefanie McCormack
Florida State University
Senior in Psychology
3.77 GPA

Spring break usually is the time to get away from school. Most students' biggest concerns are getting a hotel reservation right on the beach, finding the best clubs, and tanning as much as possible. But Florida State University's Stefanie McCormack, 22, has found another way to spend her spring break, and it involves serving others.

She has been both a participant and a site leader for Alternative Break Corps (ABC) both in the U.S. and abroad. As the site co-leader, McCormack has organized trips and coordinated efforts in Philadelphia for the 2000 and 2002 trips. "As a site co-leader, I've been faced with the hard work of fund-raising, making site contacts, securing housing in a new city, and educating my participants on the issues at hand," she says about the 2000 trip. The issues have included homelessness, substance abuse, and poverty—not exactly light spring break fare—but McCormack has managed to have fun along the way. "The FSU fight song, along with other happy songs, were left in Philadelphia at a substance-abuse recovery program for women and children." This year, while working with two non-profit organizations, she got to see a special guest: President Bush. "It was very exciting, because President Bush is asking for every American to do two hours of service, and it was really cool that we were there on a volunteer trip," she says. "It felt really good that there we were, following the President's orders!" In New Orleans, she was a participant in a restoration project at Fisher Elementary School where ABC left the schoolkids a 400-square-foot mural in the school's hallway based on the creatures from the book, Where the Wild Things Are. She says that she loves the idea "that children can walk by the mural on their way to class and know that a complete stranger cares about them." In the Ukraine last year, her service work included projects at an orphanage, a mental disability center, and two local schools. She says a piece of her heart still goes out to the children she met there each time she corresponds with the young people who are trying to master English. Immediately after final exams, she's scheduled to leave for Panama to help build a new schoolhouse. "Traveling like that just makes you appreciate the United States and being an American," she says. "It just reinforces the ideas that we have about freedom and that you can follow after "the American dream." Seeing the obstacles people have to overcome in other countries just makes you appreciate your way of life so much."

For a lot of students, a week of concentrated philanthropic time like that would mean they could go back to their regular lives feeling that they'd done enough. McCormack stays busy through the school year serving as external vice president of her sorority, Phi Mu, as secretary of Seminole Ambassadors on campus, and as a member of multiple honor societies. Within her sorority, she has a talent for getting her sisters more involved in community service. "Different girls join for different reasons, but I really want all the girls to see how important it is to get out there," McCormack says. "As a leader in Phi Mu, I coordinated a weekly volunteer outreach project with America's Second Harvest Food Bank," she says. "This offered my sisters a chance to help a local agency, and our cumulative community service hours have increased threefold."  She even got the mayor of Tallahassee in on her projects. "I had October 15, 2001 officially proclaimed as Phi Mu National Philanthropy Day in the city of Tallahassee by Mayor Scott Maddox," she says. "To coincide with the special proclamation, I helped to organize a service project with our local alumni chapter to make and distribute Halloween goodie bags for the children at the local Tallahassee Memorial Hospital."  Within her sorority, she has been the driving force behind much greater community service involvement. "We've never had so much community service involvement until Stefanie came along," says Lori Mizell, advisor for the Alpha Epsilon chapter of Phi Mu. "Everything she's been asked to do or been responsible for in positions she's held, she's always followed through about 125 percent."  One of McCormack's jobs was to be a team captain for Dance Marathon, a huge event on campus. "She was in charge of a very large event for our sorority, and she did an awesome job getting her chapter motivated," Mizell says. "We had our best turn-out that year with her being in charge and she was always very positive and very encouraging, which really affected the rest of the members." McCormack is the sort to get things done, Mizell says. "She doesn't have a problem being a follower or a leader. She's just there to get things done."

Within her sorority, McCormack has also been captain of the intramural basketball team. She led her team to the sorority league championship playoffs in 2000 and 2001, and in 2000 to a first-place victory at the Theta Jam 3-On-3 Philanthropy Tournament. "She's done a lot of different things for us," Mizell says. "She's involved in a lot of different organizations, and in order to balance all that, she has to be very organized and responsible."

Being a Seminole Ambassador means being the face of the university for entering students, and Stefanie has filled that role since 1999, serving as secretary last year. Showing new students around the campus is one job duty, but it goes much deeper than that. "During Preview Weekends, I served on the FSU Student Panel to answer questions about campus life. Several students I met personally during Preview Weekends have come to study at Florida State," she says. "I also directly recruited National Merit and National Hispanic Scholars with personalized campus tours. In effect, Seminole Ambassadors have enabled FSU to recruit more top students." Admissions Coordinator Leekemase Gadson, who works with the ambassadors, says, "Stephanie always represents FSU and the Office of Admissions with great pride. She's definitely one of the best students I've had contact with through the program."

Her role in Homecoming at FSU was to be more than just a pretty face, even though she was a princess candidate. "She was elected to serve in our Homecoming Court this year, and at some schools, it's different, but at our school, it's more of a leadership recognition," Mizell says. She had served the previous year as the banner competition chair, coordinating all aspects of the Homecoming banner competition through SG and the 20 student organizations entered in the event. "For the first time, the Homecoming banners were hung around the football field during the game to be viewed on national television," McCormack says. Since she's worked actively in the Student Alumni Association, she's no stranger to being in the stadium, especially since the group works in the president's skybox during home football games. She also makes appearances in the Golden Ace Girls Spirit Group for the FSU men's tennis team, keeping score at home matches and serving on the public relations committee to promote men's tennis at the university.

In 1999, she was the representative for her sorority in the Emerging Leaders Program, for which she attended weekly leadership seminars and conferences, and this year, she moved up to mentor status, allowing her to mentor a new Emerging Leader candidate. Based on her willingness to give of her own time and energies and to see to the welfare of others, it sounds like being a mentor for new leaders is a role that suits her well.

McCormack's scholarships and full-time summer job pay for the majority of her tuition and expenses, and her parents help out as well.

Contact McCormack at sgm5693@garnet.acns.fsu.edu