WORCESTER—A Quinsigamond Community College professor is reflecting on a global service experience that continues to shape her teaching and outlook after volunteering with Ukrainian refugee children in Poland as part of her recent sabbatical.
Flo Lucci, a professor of business administration and marketing at QCC, spent a week in July 2024 volunteering in the city of Siedlce through Global Volunteers, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports community-led service projects worldwide. The program focused on helping integrate Ukrainian refugee students into local schools as families fled the ongoing war.
Lucci said the volunteer work grew out of a desire to incorporate global service into a sabbatical that already included academic research and a Fulbright Specialist contract that was ultimately disrupted.
“I wanted to add some global service and specifically wanted to serve the Ukrainian people as the war had recent started,” Lucci told the Worcester Guardian. “I used Chat GPT and narrowed down Global Volunteers Organization and had a great experience with them.”
Working alongside a 12-member volunteer team, Lucci helped lead an English-language summer camp for students ages 10 to 14. Early efforts followed a formal instructional model, but the approach quickly shifted when it became clear that language barriers and trauma were limiting engagement.
“The entire team felt our first day was a complete failure on our part,” Lucci said. “So, we all worked hard to try and figure out more fun engaging activities to get the students relaxing and then approach vocabulary advancement, conversation, etc. This shifting worked much more effectively.”
By the end of the week, Lucci said students who were initially withdrawn were actively participating, bonding with classmates and engaging more confidently with volunteers and peers.
The experience reinforced lessons Lucci has encountered repeatedly through teaching and service abroad, including the need to adapt expectations across cultures and educational systems.
“As Americans, we assume that our educational environment is similar in style to others, but nothing could be further from the truth,” she said, noting differences she has observed while teaching in Poland, Israel, Russia and Italy.
While the experience did not change Lucci’s teaching philosophy, she said it reaffirmed the power of connection and compassion — even over a short period of time.
“What I learned from this global service assignment is that even one week with a population can be enough to both help them and brighten their days,” Lucci said. “But you can help these people by showing compassion. That was what I really took out of the experience.”
Lucci later extended her service work with Global Volunteers through a domestic program at the Texas border in March 2025 and said she plans to increase her volunteer efforts as she approaches retirement.
“Our little community college has allowed me to participate in a lot of these experiences,” Lucci said. “I am grateful to them and do believe all of it has helped me be a more effective classroom teacher.”
Have news, tips, or a story worth telling? A good recipe or a funny joke? Reach Editor Charlene Arsenault at carsenault@theworcesterguardian.org—because good stories (and great scoops) deserve to be shared.
- The Worcester Guardian is an independent nonprofit news organization. Support local journalism by making a DONATION today.
