Redding Resident of the Week: Mercedes DeMasi

Name: Mercedes DeMasi

Age: 25

Occupation: Student at Western Connecticut State University (WCSU) and Student Trustee on the Connecticut State University System (CSUS) Board of Trustees.

What are some of your hobbies?

I love to read. I like to sew and cook vegetarian food; I like traveling, I’ve been to 12 countries on five continents. I enjoy volunteering. I also like making zines (self published, creative magazines). Hanging out with my dachshund and my parents.

How long have you lived in Redding?

I’ve lived here for 25 years. I was born in Danbury Hospital.

What kind of volunteer activities do you do?

Currently, I’m on the Academic Affairs and Student Life committees for the CSUS Board of Trustees. I’m a Justice for the Student Government Association at WCSU. I volunteered in an orphanage in Ghana in 2008, and at a Nicaraguan school in 2009. In 2008 I helped with educational development in Jamaica. I assisted in a development project in Brazil in 2007. I was also the Senior Editor of the WCSU Social Sciences Journal for 2010.

What do you like about being on the Board of Trustees?

I like being able to represent one-quarter of the 36,000-plus students of the CSU System. We’re facing budget cuts of more than 10 percent right now, so I’ve been going to help lobby in the capitol. I went up to the capitol along with 69 WCSU students—the largest contingency from all the CSUS schools—on Feb. 28. I testified along with students, faculty, and staff before the Appropriations Committee; I told them that I was in opposition to the budget cuts for higher education that are being discussed.

What is your favorite thing about Redding?

It’s a really beautiful place year-round. The woods are beautiful, and I really love our family’s property, which we've made into a nature preserve.

What is your fondest memory that takes place in Redding?

In 1997 I participated at an archaeological expedition at the John Read House, assisting in surveying the property and sifting the soil for small finds and artifacts.
This inspired me to do more archaeology—10 years later, in 2007, I went on another dig in Cyprus. I wrote a paper after the dig in Cyprus called "Textile Production at Athienou-Malloura: The Case for Processing Flax in the Venetian Period," which is being published in a book later this year.