We all want different things out of our careers. If you’re looking for a college program that can help you create positive change in the world, finding a suitable program can be especially tough. But at Centennial College, not only do we have one that fits you, we have a long history of students finding success after graduation, and even picking up awards for the great things they accomplish. Shamoy Marstin is one of those alumni. After graduating from our Community Development Work program, she went on to champion diversity, inclusion and community, and currently works as a program specialist for Jays Care Foundation, the charitable arm of the Toronto Blue Jays MLB baseball team. Here’s her story, and how Centennial College helped her get to where she is.
A member of the international community
Born and raised in Jamaica, Shamoy came to Centennial as an international student in 2017.
“Around that time, I was pursuing a sociology course,” she continues, “And that's where I fell in love with the concept of learning about people. I really didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. But that one course kind of helped me to open the doors to an interest of mine.”
She’d choose Centennial thanks to her mother previously doing schooling here, but also because our Community Development Work program’s short duration suited her.
“As an international student, you sometimes have to weigh the cost of education and how it can benefit you more in the long run,” she says. ”Centennial had a program that was two years long, which could get me into the doors that I needed to get into, as opposed to other colleges that were offering four- or five-year programs.”
Finding her path
“Centennial gave me a lot of practical experience,” Shamoy says. “I had two separate placement semesters, one was two months and the other one was four. The work really helped me to find my footing in the professional setting, especially since I had no prior work experience in this country.”
“The great thing about Centennial is they give you the option to figure out exactly where you want to get placed,” she says about her placements. “You tell them what you're interested in. Do you want to work with kids or elderly people, do you want to work in more of a hospital setting or more of a community-orientated setting? I was very comfortable with my placements, because they matched exactly what my interests were, and I went into it already confident because they gave me the tools to succeed.”
One placement was facilitating programs in the Kingston/Galloway and Chester Le communities, and the other one was Toronto Community Housing (TCH), who would eventually hire her.
“When I went to TCH with that experience of understanding how the backend works [from my first placement], they were very interested in how that experience transformed me into a professional in that space,” she says. “So once my internship wrapped up, a position opened up as a senior program leader, which was basically similar to what I was doing before and in my previous placement. I got the job and I was then leading senior and youth programs for Toronto Community Housing.”
It’s all connected
“It's funny how my career is kind of linked from one experience to the other,” Shamoy says. “Starting from Centennial, everything has lined up so perfectly for me.”
“TCH are partnered with Jays Care Foundation,” she explains, “so I was able to jump ships, and go into the more corporate community enterprise from that partnership.”
“I was a supervisor, and I just got promoted last week to a management role as a Project Lead with a designated team overseeing my own projects,” she says. “So it's kind of a steady progression for me. But I am very grateful to Centennial, because even at my age, to have progressed that fast in my career is somewhat unheard of. I'm one of the youngest on my team. I do believe if it wasn't for the talents and the skills and just the overall culture of the program that was given to me, I wouldn't have been so successful.”
And as for that success, you can see it in the programs she’s spearheaded during her time at Jays Care, including Family Night at Home and a Diversity Workshop Program with Major Baseball Youth Leagues.
Family Night at Home
“During the pandemic I was working with Jays Care, trying to figure out how we could fast-track a program to support the community,” Shamoy says. “We were originally doing a lot of things around mental health and programs making sure that families are okay. But then I realized that a lot of the community businesses were also devastated. We were trying to simultaneously help the same people, but in different capacities, so why not bring something together that supports both of them? And that's how I created the idea of Family Night at Home. It's a program where we partner with several community, mom and pop businesses and restaurants across the city, to cater meals to families that are in priority communities who are facing food insecurity.”
“What had helped me specifically come up with this program is that, in my [Centennial] course, they were big on intersectionality – thinking of ways different community issues might simultaneously affect each other without us noticing.”
“Strategies and practices that I learned in my course helped me put this idea together, too,” she adds. “Even templates that I got in my assignments helped me to put that presentation and pitch it to my board of directors. A lot of those templates and work plans I still use in my actual job.”
Diversity in baseball
“Outside of Toronto, we were realizing a lot of softball and baseball leagues either don't have a lot of diversity on the actual teams or staffing, or there's a lack of knowledge of diversity,” Shamoy says.
“So we created a Diversity Workshop that all coaches that are affiliated with baseball or softball across Canada are able to sign up for free,” she continues. “And each week, they learn different topics, like how to diversify their recruitment strategies. And the other part of it is how to make their spaces more inclusive and welcoming for all kids. How that connects to Centennial is a lot of the frameworks of the Community Development program are based on anti-oppression and racial equality.”
Award winners
Shamoy would go on to gain official recognition for her efforts, picking up two separate awards within the span of a week. She was selected as one of RBC’s Future of Good 2022 Young Impact Leaders, and also received the 2022 Black Youth Gala Award for Equity and Diversity.
“The one that I received for the Black Youth Gala was more so for my work with Door Dash and the program that I brought together, and the MLB diversity workshop that I helped to co-create,” she says, “as well as some other initiatives that I do on the side, such as creating Black History Month content and current curriculum for all of our youth programming in Toronto, and championing funding resources for underserved Black-led and Black-serving community programs.”
“My RBC Future for Good nomination was made by my Director, I had no clue I was getting nominated[SM1] ,” she says. “I was nominated based on my work in in those environments, and how much of an impact I was able to create with some of these programs, with a notable mention that I run most of these things by myself. I didn’t have a team or a large body of people to continuously support it.”
A career worth doing
Want to follow in Shamoy’s footsteps? It’s not just her own talents, or the college’s preparation that led to Shamoy’s community development career taking off. According to her, it’s about timing.
“You have corporations that were never involved in the community at any level dedicating funds, coordinating entire teams towards building some form of community relations as a part of their company,” she says. “So I would say this is now the time to get involved in it.”
“Never take your practicals for granted,” she continues. “A lot of the practical experiences that you think are everyday tasks will be very important when you decide to launch your career. You have to lean on those tangible tools that you thought were just annoying and repetitive and not necessary in your everyday life as a professional – but those skills are what I'm using now in my practical life to help me do a lot of the things in my career.”
“It’s a field that a lot of people might have negative connotations of,” she admits. “They might not see the entire vision. But this is ground-breaking work: to think that my sole responsibility as a community development professional is to find creative ways to improve people's quality of life.”
Looking to the future
“I got a senior position way earlier than I expected,” Shamoy says, happily, about her recent promotion at JaysCare. “That was kind of my two-year goal, and it’s happening right now. But where I see myself in my career is opening something or developing something that is more so mine. I want to either create a community program or organization or community agency, I’m not entirely sure in what specific area yet, but I want to have the autonomy to implement change in communities, from different perspectives.”
“The next goals for my career are seeing how high or how far I can go with a little bit of hard work and determination,” she says, “and hopefully paying it forward in some practice of my own.”
Written By: Anthony Geremia