Faith in action
“I remember being proud the first day of middle school,” says graduating senior Jennifer Quiroa, “because I knew my parents never got the chance to do what I was doing. Every day and year that I went further in school was another milestone. I knew I was a pioneer.”
She is not only a family pioneer. Artist, future doctor, fiancée, Guatemalan-American, evangelical Christian: Each label skims Quiroa’s surface.
Born in Los Angeles 22 years ago, Quiroa lived in her parents’ native Guatemala for four years, then moved to Providence at age five. Her second-grade teacher, Elizabeth Molho ’84, urged Quiroa to apply to Brown.
“Because of poverty, [my parents] were forced to drop out of school and work to help their families before completing their elementary educations,” Quiroa says. “My parents would drive this point home by telling me about all the hardships they had to endure due to their lack of education. I have always kept my parents’ sacrifices in mind.”
Applying to colleges, Quiroa decided she would attend whichever school gave her the most financial aid. “Because of the Champlin Scholarship I received, Brown ended up being the least expensive school I applied to,” she says. “I owe these life-changing, incredible four years entirely to the Champlin Scholarship.”
Quiroa’s bachelor’s degree in visual art reflects the progress of her work to a new level ripe with meaning. “I made pro-life art that really fired up some students at Brown,” she says. “That made me realize I wanted to do more. It made me realize how privileged I was to be a Christian voice at a liberal school.”
Quiroa was also pre-med at Brown and took an art therapy course at RISD and Bradley Hospital. “I plan on becoming a doctor, a surgeon more specifically, [and] hopefully going to Brown Med school,” she says.
Though she didn’t expect to join a Christian organization at Brown, Quiroa names College Hill for Christ (CHC) and its missions as most influential on her Brown career. “I realized that as a college student, I was privileged with many resources such as time, and that I couldn’t let any free time of mine go to waste,” she explains. “I used every summer and spring break as an opportunity to go on an adventure in which I could help people in need.”
Quiroa went on three CHC mission trips to post-Katrina New Orleans, and traveled twice to Northern Uganda after seeing the film Invisible Children at Brown. “My heart was completely broken for the people of Northern Uganda after watching that film. In my mind I had to go there.
Quiroa with a child in Northern Uganda, where she used art therapy to help traumatized war victims.
“Luckily for me,” she continues, “or by the grace of God, as I like to believe, CHC decided to lead a team of Brown students [to Uganda] that summer.” Volunteering at a rural clinic, treating patients who hadn’t seen a doctor in decades, strengthened Quiroa’s resolve to become a doctor. “I personally witnessed a child die,” she recalls sadly. “I held him in my arms and wept because of the lack of medical attention he had had, and my inability to do anything for him. I hope to use medicine in the future to help bring life and restoration to people in need.”
In addition to leadership positions in CHC, Quiroa has belonged to the nondenominational-Christian Providence Life Center for her four years at Brown, and to the campus pro-life groups Bound for Life and Students for Life. She has tutored Spanish at the Wheeler School; taught art and science after school to urban youth at the elementary school she attended, William D’Abate; and conducted ESL classes for a local nonprofit, English for Action. “They serve and give back to the Olneyville Hispanic immigrant community my family and I have identified with while living in Providence,” she says of the latter organization.
“Jen’s faith presses her to contribute to the world in significant, personal, and life-changing ways,” says Brodie Herb, associate campus director for CHC. “She knows that she is gifted: not only for her own enjoyment, but to be used to change, restore, and redeem the brokenness that is so prevalent in the world.”
Before moving to Dallas and a job with Teach for America, Quiroa and fiancé Matthew Efflandt will marry. The couple met as students at Providence’s Classical High School. In the words of Providence Life Church’s weekly newsletter: “Congratulations to JENNIFER QUIROA as she graduates from Brown Univ. next weekend … and her wedding to Matthew on the following weekend, May 31st. Be Blessed with God’s highest & best!”