Citation for the 2008 recipient of the
Saint Anselm College Award for Service and Citizenship
May 17, 2008

The recipient of this year’s award came to Saint Anselm College with strong moral values and a desire to provide other people with the same kind of professional medical care he received in a childhood where his education and upbringing was complicated by a diagnosis of cancer, massive doses of radiation and chemotherapy, multiple reconstructive surgeries and the loss of vision in one eye.  He graduates today with the highest cumulative GPA in his major and the unequivocal respect and admiration of his classmates and faculty.   This young man has taken the lessons learned in laboratories and lecture halls and put them to use in a way that required putting his own adversity aside in service to his fellow men and women.  

Traveling to a country with an ongoing civil war and high rates of infectious disease, this student cared for people who have no access to medical care.  With funds he raised himself, he trekked into rural villages and worked from a bench that held his nursing texts and a suitcase full of medications.  He treated conditions ranging from malaria to machete wounds to botched caesarian sections and delivered AIDS prevention education.

Horrified by the lack of basic medications and clean drinking water, and the huge number of those who suffer and die from easily preventable diseases, he promised to return not only to heal the sick, but to find ways to improve their living conditions.  Together with the mother and father who stood by his hospital bed in childhood and who stand by him so proudly today, he has established a foundation to help these impoverished villages. And, this year, after raising money for air fare and medicines, he and his parents will travel to Uganda to continue what he started.

Helen Keller said, “I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” Because this graduate has not refused to do the “something” he could do—even in the face of daunting challenges, we present the award for citizenship and service to a much beloved son and member of the class of 2008, a healer who brings hope to us all and the first in his family to graduate from college, a nursing major from Hamilton, Massachusetts - Benjamin Prieur.