\u201cI realized that I was one of the few people in the group who actually knew \u2014 and I realized I didn’t want that to end with me,\u201d said Benziger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At that moment, recalls Benziger, \u201cit wasn’t going to suffice for me to just be another singer in the choir. It was important to step up and become one of the leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like many of her classmates, Benziger \u2014 now co-president of the Merimanders \u2014 has experienced key moments in her Bates experience, where her growing knowledge and self-awareness put her on a springboard, from which she jumped into action and leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taking on a leadership role was not something she would have predicted at the beginning of her college career. \u201cI don’t think \u2018timid\u2019 is the right word,\u201d said Benziger, \u201cbut I think I was somebody who was sort of hesitant to go the full nine yards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat if I fail?\u201d she would ask herself. \u201cWhat if it\u2019s too much work? What if I can’t do it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She came face-to-face with that hesitation when she started working at a Lewiston nonprofit, the Center for Wisdom\u2019s Women. Benziger had reached out to Marty Deschaines \u201975 of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships, looking for student employment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Deschaines, the Harward center\u2019s assistant director of community volunteerism and student leadership development, suggested Wisdom\u2019s Women, and the next day, Benziger walked over to the center \u2014 and was overwhelmed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere were just a lot of people,\u201d said Benziger. \u201cYou walk in and there’s 20, 30 women, and everyone’s having conversations. Back before the pandemic, there’d be people in the kitchen cooking, other people would be doing an art class, or chatting over coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The hubbub of the center intimidated Benziger at first but she decided to keep showing up. \u201cIt just became like almost a home away from home. There’s always people talking, there’s always things happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The things that I did, the people that I talked to, the stuff that I helped out with, it mattered to that person in the moment.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Soon, she was engaging with women at the center and finding her stride, committing wholeheartedly to the undertaking. She recalls spending a week helping a woman create a resume and practice for job interviews. The woman spoke a little English, and Portuguese, which was \u201cclose-ish\u201d to Benziger\u2019s experience with Spanish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI do a lot of things at Bates and they’re very important in a big-picture, theoretical sense,\u201d says Benziger, a triple major in music, history, and politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut going to the center was getting to be important to somebody’s life in maybe a very micro sense, but also a very real sense, because the things that I did, the people that I talked to, the stuff that I helped out with, it mattered to that person in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After a year and a half of COVID-cancelled a cappella performances, Maya Benziger ’22 realized there was more at stake than just singing on stage: the entire pre-pandemic Merimander experience could disappear with her graduating class, and she realized, “I didn’t want that to end with me.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":143937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[32,11012],"tags":[12250,12256],"class_list":["post-143892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maine-and-new-england","category-student-life","tag-voices","tag-voices-of-the-class-of-2022"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143892"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143963,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143892\/revisions\/143963"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2022\/01\/Benziger-2022-01-21-at-1.32.28-PM-edited2.webp\")