Meet Barbara LeSage, our new Residency Manager
You are Welcome!
Meet Barbara LeSage, our new Residency Manager
By Hugh Gelch, Clerk Development Committee
Barbara LeSage came to Beacon Hill Friends House last month as a resident and our new Residency Manager. While new to BHFH, Barbara is not new to Quakerism and she has had a life-long leading to make people feel welcome and included – a perfect match for her new home and new job!
Barbara grew up in Connecticut and felt joy in bringing people together from when she was a student. One of her projects was to join and become President of the American Field Service (Now AFS-USA) Club at her high school, coordinating the international student exchange program there. Creating a diverse, inclusive and welcoming school community empowered Barbara with a growing sense of mission.
Barbara lived as an exchange student herself in Germany. She appreciated the differences in educational approaches between Germany and the US and determined to pursue a career in education to help improve the educational wellbeing of American students. Needless to say, she majored in education in college!
Barbara taught high school math and became concerned with helping students from disadvantaged backgrounds. She learned that she was more interested in helping these students create fulfilling lives than teaching them one academic subject and left her teaching position to work as a nanny for her nieces while pursuing a masters degree in social work. Nurturing her niece (and then two other nieces and a nephew after that), Barbara experienced the beautiful childhood development that can occur in a loving, advantaged family – something she hopes to share with others through her social work and teaching.
Barbara is a seeker not only professionally but spiritually, and that is how she found Quakerism. She visited a 5 pm Meeting for Worship at Friends Meeting of Cambridge nine years ago when she was church shopping, mostly because she could fit in two church visits that day due to the afternoon timing! She knew nothing about Quakers, but felt an instant comfort and peace in the Quaker form of silent worship. It happened that the greeter that day, Tom Ash, was teaching a four-week Quakerism 101 course starting soon after, which she attended. From that class she became close with three other women and formed a Quaker oriented Women’s Spirituality Circle at Cambridge Friends Meeting, which continued every other week for seven years. Their meetings were based in silence and deep listening, and eventually incorporated the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) processes they learned in retreats.
Following her leading to promote inclusion, Barbara joined the Fellowship and Outreach Committee at FMC and while on the committee developed an email list and online communications for newcomers. She is motivated to make all feel as welcome as she herself felt when visiting her Meeting. And in her effort to promote Quaker youth leadership and activism, she has taken on the role of Clerk of the Quaker Voluntary Service Local Support Committee. In this role she helps facilitate the work of QVS, an organization that provides one-year fellowships for young adults to live in a residence based in Quaker practices while working full-time in non-profit organizations.
Barbara’s commitment to welcoming and her sense of Quaker purpose are a wonderful match for Beacon Hill Friends House – we welcome her with as open arms as she welcomes our entire community!
