Last name pronounced the way you want to spell it when you hear it but without the “d” (Hint: Childs), Joy comes to State College as the first in her family from Philadelphia, Pa. Working to maintain the path to completing her undergrad at Penn State Joy has been finding her way to make the most of her time while out of school. The leading hurdle she faces is the big question we all face, what we want to do for the rest of your life. Growing up always interested and eager to learn any and everything she remained constantly involved in extracurricular activities and after school programs. From the start of elementary school playing chess, tap dancing, studying Viola and Cello, and mock trail to drama club, gay-straight student alliance, to playing Volleyball, her biggest influence derives from the impact she observed from her time participating in youth service community outreach programs committing over 1,400 service hours throughout her high school career.

From her time spent working as a member, social media manager, to president of her school buildOn chapter she was able to also travel to a village to help build a school in the mountains of San Jose, Nicaragua on a two week Trek initiative, her time as a member of Youth Leadership Council out of the United Communities Houston Learning Center of South Philly, and revamped alternative student service organization (YVC) Youth Volunteer Corp. As one of the many co-student organizer of the “Silent Student Movement” from the very connections and friends made through her involvement of said programs to challenge and represent her school administration and student body to walk out, speak up, and protests from against the public school education fund cuts of 2014 from Philadelphia’s City Hall and 440 (School District) to Harrisburg and much more, what Joy is sure of is her passion for direct community engagement for collective positive change and liberation.

Though uncertain she pursued college and continued on to university as Division of Under-graduate Studies at Penn State in the fall of 2016. Her second semester of trying to find her niche, she enrolled in Dr. Sam Richards Sociology class on Race & Ethnic Relations and WinC Assistant Director Denna Seballos CED400 course on Indigenous Ways of Knowing the following spring and said “now that’s what i’m talking about” Joy had the idea to TA for the eccentric professor as a way to explore the field before declaring Sociology as her major. Concluding her first year, Joy found herself having to withdraw from school and reached out to the professors, shared her circumstances, and asked if there was any way to work/study under them.

Since the fall of 2017, Joy has gone up the ranks from being a volunteer member of Dr. Sam Richards Live Stream Team production as a director, to lead director, to coach, to a position as WinC’s tech assistant simultaneously setting up hardware and learning the execution of the WinC programs, to full time staff Office Coordinator learning the operations and logistics of WinC’s programs. Always eager for the changes of the future and “down for the ride” she gratefully lives out her one sure passion while continuing to learn academically, professionally and grow as a women with the training, experience, and lessons of the community, courses, and programing that is World in Conversation.