Alumni Profile

(L to R) Stacey Hunter-Schwartz, Jessica Jones, Allison Vickrey-Kao, Kaitlyn Monck '18, and Emily Berger alumni profile KAITLYN MONCK '18

When looking for a place to start my future, Waldorf University was a shining star among many places. I knew that I wanted to attend somewhere that allowed me to focus on academics, athletics, and giving back to the community - whether that be through campus ministry or varying community service projects. My career at Waldorf challenged me in ways that I was not expecting and transformed my thought processes. It really was my time in the history department that truly transformed what I wanted my future to look like. I no longer was concerned with choosing a career strictly based on income, but rather, I wanted to be able to work with those under-served and misunderstood. Professor Kevin Mason had a way of highlighting the reality that history is often told by the people who profited from it most, and that led me to do research and seek opportunities to serve those that are often not heard.

After graduating from Waldorf I moved across the country to Sacramento and began working as a legal secretary at a law firm. While this was a good career choice for me in my pursuit toward law school, it was not fulfilling the piece of me that wanted to serve people. Amidst the pandemic in October of 2020, I applied for a position with a Sacramento local non-profit organization - Women’s Empowerment. After three years of working as a legal secretary for a firm that handled landlord-tenant law, I found myself wanting to advocate for the unhoused during a time where housing was and currently still is, something that is lacking in the greater Sacramento area and across the United States.

Our non-profit, Women’s Empowerment, is a job-readiness program that works with women and children that are experiencing homelessness. It is our agency's goal to educate and empower these women who are experiencing homelessness with the skills and the confidence necessary to get a job, maintain a healthy lifestyle, and regain a home for themselves and their children. We do eight-week sessions, and the photo above was for the start of the 85th session at Women's Empowerment.

Currently I work as the agency's Housing Specialist. In this role I am responsible for providing housing education, financial education, and housing advocacy for the over 1,700 women who have walked through the doors of Women’s Empowerment. Additionally, I have begun working with my law schools Homeless Advocacy Clinic, where I provide pro-bono legal services to the unhoused community in Sacramento. Here we are able to provide expungement assistance, work to apply for welfare and social security benefits, and seek proper advocacy to those that normally do not have access to these resources.

All thanks to Waldorf University opening my eyes to the world around me, I have been able to see a system that lacks both the knowledge and the resources necessary to address needs of women and children that are experiencing homelessness, and the depths of the issues surrounding their circumstances. I have been able to get involved and work with an agency that is making change in the Greater Sacramento area. If people are interested in learning more about our agency or how they can help, please visit our website: https://womens-empowerment.org/.