Invasion of Privacy: Jessie Mazzeo

Photo via Jessie Mazzeo

Geneseo offers a number of subcommittees within the Office of Sustainability for students to join and make a difference on campus: the Food Security Advocates (FSA), Genny Thrift, Plastic Free Zone Student Task Force, and many more. One student who has been an incredibly active member within the sustainability community is Jessie Mazzeo, a junior sustainability major with minors in biology and urban studies.  

Jessie Mazzeo started her college career as a biology major to pursue a role in teaching, but she soon realized that this was not the path for her: “After taking a lot of the basic requirements for biology… I was like, ‘I’m not particularly interested in some topics, such as microbiology, but [I] was interested in doing some sort of environmental studies major instead,” she said. “I went from being bio, to undeclared, to psychology, [until] they came out with the sustainability studies major at the beginning of my sophomore year.”  

For Mazzeo, one of the biggest appeals of the sustainability major is its broad scope: “I already had a bunch of the biology classes so I kept the bio minor,” she said. “Now I’m doing sustainability studies, but sustainability studies is also a very broad field itself, so now I have another minor, urban studies, in order to narrow it down even further and focus more on the social, political, and economic sides of sustainability.”  

Mazzeo also plays a big role in the subcommittees of the Office of Sustainability, including Genny Thrift. Genny Thrift is an on-campus pop-up thrift shop where students can browse and shop for ethically sourced clothing. They offer recommended prices, but are a “pay-what-you-can” alternative to shopping for fast fashion. 

Mazzeo and a fellow ambassador, junior sustainability studies major Lauren Verde, won the Frank Vafier ‘74 Ambassadorship in Leadership award, which grants Genny Thrift $5,000 to fulfill their community-based project. This will give Genny Thrift the opportunity to look for an on-campus retail location, as well as buy supplies such as clothing racks and mannequins, which aims to help make the club grow. This March, Genny Thrift will travel to SUNY Oneonta to learn more about what makes a successful on-campus thrift store.  

Another subcommittee that Mazzeo is a part of is FSA. Mazzeo is the Sustainability Coordinator, which helps bring FSA and the Office of Sustainability together:

“I act as a liaison between FSA and the Office of Sustainability; I’m a directed study intern with the Office of Sustainability, and within the Office of Sustainability there are subcommittees, and FSA is one of them,” she said. “I figure out ways to relate food security to sustainability because they are very much intertwined. When it comes time for events such as Earth Week or Campus Sustainability Month, that’s my time to shine. I’ll come up with events and ways to promote sustainability.”  

Back in June 2022, Mazzeo had the opportunity to study abroad in Ghana for a month, which was her first time being out of the country:

“We learned about neglected tropical diseases called schistosomiasis, which I had never heard of until before signing up for this course,” she said. “It’s a neglected tropical disease, so people don’t know enough about it.  The research is underfunded, but it’s important to learn.”

While in Ghana, Mazzeo reflected on the American lifestyle compared to other countries: “The kids were just kids, and even the teenagers too. They just wanted to have fun, and it made me reflect on American society and how we are always going at such a fast pace and everything has to be done efficiently and on time; it’s all about production,” she said.  “There was [such] a cultural reset. It made me realize [life is] not all about work, it’s also about play, and meeting people and forming bonds with people. You can take a step back and enjoy people’s presence instead of always having to be productive and staying right on task; you can be social too.” 

While being an active member of the sustainability community, Mazzeo dabbles in multiple clubs and organizations on and off campus.  She’s had the opportunity to see the Office of Sustainability grow, and has even been able to see herself grow as a student and as a person.  Jessie Mazzeo is definitely a multi-faceted individual and has a very bright future ahead of her.