When he started at Santa Clara, Anthony Hascheff’s main interests were baseball and finance.  He’s still interested in business—he graduated from SCU with a BS in Finance and a minor in Economics— but his experiences at SCU, and in the Thriving Neighbors program, pointed him in new directions.  Now he finds himself in Paraguay working with the Peace Corps, on a mission to make the world a better place.

Anthony worked as a Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative (NPI) intern in the Washington neighborhood. During this time he tutored school kids in afterschool programs, met with parents and community organizations, and learned everything he could about a neighborhood he now calls a vibrant place bursting with “entrepreneurial energy and joyful attitudes.”  The experience changed him, and helped put him on the path to where he wants to be.

“Working with TNI through the after-school program allowed me to develop personally in my final year of college,” Anthony says. “I helped tutor and mentor some the brightest 4th and 5th graders at Washington Elementary— more accurately, I became friends with some of the most amazing kids I have ever met and watched the foundations of their bridge to higher education be built.”

“Although I was the ‘teacher,’ those kids ended up teaching me invaluable lessons,” he says. “They taught me to shield myself from pessimism and maximize each and every day to its fullest. Their positive attitudes and perpetual smiles provided me energy and unequivocal happiness.”

After his time in the program, Hascheff wrote a lengthy report about specific ways TNI and the Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative could bring more value and benefit to the Greater Washington community. “I realized there were so many people and entities working to help Washington but they often did not know of each other,” he says, “or the full spectrum of issues to be addressed.”  

That report— the product of Anthony’s business education, creative inspiration, and practical mind— has been an important source of new ideas for TNI going forward. Even though Anthony has graduated and moved across the world, the influence of his ideas is still felt on campus.