Best Friends Through Service

Everyone has that one close friend—that person that can be called on at a moment’s notice. Without any hesitation, they constantly show love and support through both the good and bad times in life. In many ways, these individuals are more than friends; they are best friends.

Friendship can be celebrated any day, but what better way to celebrate a best friend than on a day dedicated to them? Today is National Best Friends Day, a holiday that annually falls on June 8. To mark the occasion, the Volunteer Services team chose to highlight two high school students, Sarah Fox and Aidan Alcott, who became best friends through their service at St. Vincent de Paul. 

Sarah and Aidan are entering their final year of high school. Sarah, a rising senior, attends Xavier College Preparatory and Aidan attends Brophy College Preparatory. The two had initially met at the school’s Frosh Mixer, but lost touch shortly after.  

Three years later their paths crossed again, and this time theater was the cause.

Aidan’s twin brother Brendan was starring the Xavier/Brophy production of The Little Mermaid. Sarah was assisting with microphone tech for the production. This meant staying afterschool for several late nights of rehearsal.

Since Brendan was in the play that meant Aidan had to stay afterschool, too. This gave Sarah and Aidan and opportunity to talk and eventually make plans to spend time together.

The pair’s first outing was spent with friends; the second outing was a little different. 

“I had been volunteering at St. Vincent de Paul on-and-off for a few weeks and I guess you could say I talked a lot about it,” Sarah explained. “I would tell all my friends about the fun and loving community, and that I was fortunate enough to work with at St. Vincent de Paul.  I think that’s when I began to rub off on Aidan.”

Sarah spoke so often about her experiences volunteering with St. Vincent de Paul, that Aidan decided that he wanted to volunteer, too. 

“I was so excited to have someone join me that I told him all the steps I took [to start volunteering] and encouraged his brother to start attending too,” Sarah said.

The pair began volunteering together at St. Vincent de Paul, an activity that has brought the friends closer together.

“Although we met before we started serving at St. Vincent de Paul, the organization has played a huge role in bringing us closer together,” said Aidan. “Being able to serve together at St. Vincent de Paul has been so beneficial to our relationship.”

Echoing Aidan’s comments Sarah added that their time spent at St. Vincent de Paul helped strengthen the foundation of their friendship. “St. Vincent de Paul brought us together and taught us how to work together and pushed us in new ways that wouldn’t be possible anywhere else,” she explained.

But, volunteering wasn’t the only way St. Vincent de Paul helped to solidify the friendship.

The connection that was established between Sarah and Aidan during their time volunteering together gave Aidan another idea.

Three weeks before prom, Aidan began planning to ask Sarah to accompany him to the dance. During the course of their friendship, Aidan and Sarah had been discussing places in Arizona that the two wanted to visit before leaving for college. Unbeknownst to Sarah, Aidan had been keeping track of these locations all along.

His idea was to write letters with clues inside and to send Sarah on a scavenger hunt. Each clue would lead Sarah to a place that held significance in their friendship. 

The first stop? St. Vincent de Paul.

“I immediately knew that St. Vincent de Paul would be where I would leave the first letter because of how important the organization has been in our relationship, and the fact that Sarah was serving there that day made everything work out perfectly,” explained Aidan.

With a little help from the Volunteer Services team, the “promposal” went off without a hitch, and Sarah said, “yes”.

“Volunteering at St. Vincent de Paul really strengthened our relationship, so it was fitting that I chose where Sarah and I had created so many memories to start the scavenger hunt,” Aidan said.

Sarah added, “It meant so much to me that Aidan began the hunt there because that is where our friendship developed into what it is now."