Meet the junior putting a spotlight on Georgetown’s ‘Unsung Heroes’
‘Honestly after interviewing over 60 workers and hearing their unique stories, I’ve learned to not judge a book by its cover’
Meet Febin Bellamy, a junior in the MSB who’s late night study sessions inspired him to create a project benefitting all the Unsung Heroes on not only Georgetown’s campus but all around the country.
His Unsung Heroes Facebook page currently has over 1,400 likes and profiles a Hoya worker every day, with a photo and explanation of their background.
When asked what prompted him to start this Bellamy says, “I came up with the idea last spring, 2015. For 3 weeks straight I would study late in the MSB until like 3AM every night studying for midterms. And every single night I used to sit in the breakout rooms on the second floor – and I’d always see the facilities staff walk in the room, take out the trash, clean the glass doors – and they used to smile but avoided eye contact for the most part, until one day I decided to spark up a conversation with one of the workers, Oneil. After several conversations with him, I made it a habit to always greet a service worker if I ever passed one of them in the hallway. I remember wishing that everyone would actually take the time out to get to know the unsung heroes like Oneil – who works all night to ensure that we can have a clean environment when we go to class, or use the bathroom.”
Febin realized that many workers around campus have gone overlooked and believes that all should be recognized for everything they do for our Georgetown community. After pitching his idea for a class project in Moral Foundations of Market Society, what started out as a simple course requirement manifested into a real opportunity for change. “I had the ‘Humans of New York’ idea in mind, and created Unsung HOYAS – which geared specifically to Georgetown workers.”
His goal is to spread Unsung Heroes to different campuses, catering the organization to each particular school like Harvard’s “Unsung Crimsons” or Penn’s “Unsung Quakers”.
“Although I founded Unsung Heroes solo, I have a team that I work with to help with this project. Most of them are in my group for Courage & Moral Leadership class taught by Professor Bies [Isaiah Jones, Lucas Berry, Johnathon Carrington, Harrison Williams]. But there are also members that are not in the class [Naiara Parker, Angie Valenzuela].”
Febin explains: “This experience has changed my outlook on a lot of things in life. Honestly after interviewing over 60 workers and hearing their unique stories, I’ve learned to not judge a book by its cover. Everyone has a story, we just have to take the time to listen and show a level of acknowledgement.”