{"id":6791,"date":"2026-05-14T10:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T14:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/?page_id=6791"},"modified":"2026-05-14T10:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T14:56:31","slug":"volunteer-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/spring-2022\/along-the-walk\/volunteer-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteer Spotlight"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eliott Grover<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo by Killy Photography<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At an alumni event during his first year at Trinity College, Marvin Pierre \u201906 had a conversation that changed his life. He met Jawanza Gross \u201994, a fixed income trader who, like Pierre, had grown up in Queens before attending prep school en route to Trinity. When Pierre told Gross that he aspired to work on Wall Street, Gross offered to mentor him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very no-nonsense,\u201d Pierre says. \u201cHe just kind of said, \u2018Listen, I\u2019m going to help you get to where you want to be in life because I like what I see in you, but don\u2019t waste my time. If I see that you\u2019re not serious, I\u2019m not going to work with you.\u2019 That\u2019s all I needed to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the rest of Pierre\u2019s time at Trinity, he had weekly calls with Gross. They would talk about everything\u2013\u2013life, school, decision-making. \u201cI can\u2019t emphasize how critical his mentorship has been in putting me on a path to success,\u201d Pierre says.<\/p>\n

After graduating with a B.A. in economics, Pierre accepted a position at Goldman Sachs. Despite his accomplishments, he felt a pull toward a different path. He left finance after two years and embarked on a career in education. In 2017, he co-founded Eight Million Stories, a nonprofit in Houston that seeks to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a heart for kids who are written off,\u201d Pierre says, \u201cbecause at some point in my life I was written off as well. If it wasn\u2019t for the mentors and great schools I attended, I wouldn\u2019t be where I am today.\u201d<\/p>\n

He grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, a low-income neighborhood in New York City. Before Trinity, he attended Tabor Academy, a boarding school in Massachusetts. \u201cTabor opened my eyes to what was possible for my future,\u201d he says. \u201cBut it also helped me see the contrast in the community resources I had access to in South Jamaica versus what I had access to there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a student at Trinity, Pierre held a number of leadership roles. He strove to be a resource to younger students. Rhoden Monrose \u201909 says Pierre was like a big brother to him. \u201cHe\u2019s one of the most impressive people I overlapped with at Trinity,\u201d says Monrose. \u201cHe\u2019s a passionate and determined leader. He dreams big and gets things done. He doesn\u2019t do anything haphazardly.\u201d Like Pierre, Monrose also was mentored by Gross. \u201cMarvin was instrumental in preserving that mentorship chain with Jawanza.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, Pierre has volunteered his time to share his story with the Bantam community. During a 2020 Virtual Long Walk presentation, he described his sense of purpose. \u201cWhat motivates me the most is taking on life\u2019s most pressing issues,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m a disrupter of systems that limit the potential of our most vulnerable youth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pierre has helped lead the charge for the new Trinity Entrepreneurial Network. He spoke at the group\u2019s inaugural presentation last July and left a strong impression on Lou Shipley \u201985, who moderated the discussion. \u201cEntrepreneurship is so popular now,\u201d says Shipley, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. \u201cMost people think of it as \u2018I\u2019m going to start the next Google or Tesla,\u2019 which is great. But in Marvin\u2019s case, it\u2019s \u2018I\u2019m going to solve a critical problem in our society.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

The demands of Pierre\u2019s work make time a precious commodity, but he says he will never pass up an opportunity to help Trinity. \u201cAnytime I get a chance to be in front of students, I take advantage of it because they need to hear from us,\u201d Pierre says. \u201cThey need to hear from people who look like them and can really inspire them to go on and be successful in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more about Pierre in the Spring 2018 Trinity Reporter<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eliott Grover At an alumni event during his first year at Trinity College, Marvin Pierre \u201906 had a conversation that changed his life. He met Jawanza Gross \u201994, a fixed income trader who, like Pierre, had grown up in Queens before attending prep school en route to Trinity. When Pierre told Gross that he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"parent":6715,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6791","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nVolunteer Spotlight - The Trinity Reporter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.trincoll.edu\/reporter\/spring-2022\/along-the-walk\/volunteer-spotlight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Volunteer Spotlight\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Eliott Grover At an alumni event during his first year at Trinity College, Marvin Pierre \u201906 had a conversation that changed his life. 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