As volunteers for Mentoring Young Women In Construction (MyWIC), Immaculata University Facilities Coordinator Bailey O’Brien and Facilities Event Coordinator Briar Murtaugh were joined on August 1 by other volunteers and 40 middle and high school-aged girls at the invite-only Skilled Trades All-Star Program held at Citizens Bank Park. The program was hosted by integrated facilities management firm NEST in conjunction with the Philadelphia Phillies. While there, the group learned from Carolyn DiGiuseppe, general manager of facility services, and her team all about what it takes to keep the ballpark up and running, including activities to help the young girls get a sense of what it is like behind the scenes during day-to-day operations.
MyWIC aims to teach young women about the hands-on opportunities in the trades field. “The summer camp takes young women to different union halls and construction sites to learn more about the opportunities within the field,” O’Brien said. On this particular day, we visited Citizens Bank Park and toured the stadium and their facilities. We learned about the groundskeeping and maintenance work that goes into making the ballpark run.”
Nationwide, over 1.2 million women are working in construction, compared to the nearly 10 million men in the industry according to Construction Coverage.
“It was really eye-opening that the general manager of the facilities department [Carolyn DiGiuseppe] is a female, and she really engaged with the girls that were there about how there is a need for women in facilities,” Murtaugh said.
“I think that the Immaculata values were definitely reinforced during my time volunteering with MyWIC. As an adult, you don’t have the time, but Immaculata helped me want to make the time to give back and to help others.”