Who’s Picking Up Your Trash?

By 11:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night, the once bustling corridors of Boyer Hall are barren. Everyone has
gone home, minus a few students having a late-night study session, the occasional professor grading
papers and Kitty Statnick.

She taps on the glass door of the history department’s study room and politely says, “I’m just here for
the trash,” a line she’s perfected over the past seven years.

Statnick is one of the 49 full-time employees Messiah College hires for campus events positions. These
individuals work to serve the college through set-up and tear-down of major events, but they are also
tasked with cleaning the buildings on campus. These jobs are often taken by students as one of the part-
time, work-study positions.

For Statnick, this is her full-time job. She works Sunday through Thursday from nine to five – except
instead of working 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. like most others, her shift runs from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

As a self-proclaimed night owl, the hours don’t bother her. Her day typically starts at 2 p.m., unless she
has a doctor’s appointment or is having lunch with a friend. In those cases, she will go out, come home
and go back to bed.

“I get up and meet people for lunch at noon, but no one ever wants to get up and meet me for lunch at
two in the morning,” she says with a smile.

Like many others, she gets ready for her day by doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen and watching her
favorite television show until she must get ready for work. Both her and her husband work the third
shift for campus events, him in the High Center and her in Boyer. As an active member in their church’s
choir, Statnick says how happy her husband was to be assigned to the campus’ performance building.

“He gets to interact with music students, which he loves,” she says, “but it’s obvious that Boyer is still
the best building.”

Her bias for Boyer was established long before she started her job here. The same halls Statnick now
cleans, she once walked as a student herself.

Statnick started her education at what is now Messiah University in 1979 as an Early Childhood
Education major. After spending her freshman year at Lock Haven University, she made the decision to
transfer to Messiah.

“I came to visit a friend who was going to school here, and I just remember how friendly everyone was,”
she says. “It was also nice to know that I wouldn’t have to hide my faith. That’s how I knew that this was
the place I really wanted to be.”

She speaks fondly of her time here as she recalls living on the third floor of Old Main, watching Saturday
Night Live with 50 other people on the one communal television in Eisenhower Campus Center, riding
around in the laundry carts at her work-study job and spending spring break with her friends in Florida.

It was also at Messiah where Kitty met her husband, Brad. He was a year older than her and majoring in
history with a minor in business. The two were set up by mutual friends and were married by the
summer before her senior year. That same summer they both worked on campus cleaning buildings,
which she said is ironically what they both do today.

After graduation, the two moved to Dillsburg, Pa. Statnick started teaching first and second grade at a
nearby private school. When her oldest daughter was born, who is also now a Messiah alum, she
decided she wanted to be at home with her children and started working part-time at a daycare instead.
After a few years, she left that position and started babysitting at her home. Once both of her daughters
were in high school, she started a cleaning business with her neighbor. Although she never intended on
working at her alma mater, she took the campus events position after her husband lost his job.

Her husband worked various jobs over the years. He helped open and manage the Fulton Bank in
Dillsburg, Pa., worked in Messiah University’s Office of Development and worked for Hope International
doing microfinance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. After being let go from his position and
unable to find a new job, despite being overqualified, he eventually joined his wife in working campus
events.

“It became a matter of who could get a job first that would provide insurance,” Statnick says. “I had only
planned on working here for six months until my husband found a job, but now I’ve been here for seven
years. It isn’t where I dreamed of ending up.”

According to Statnick, this narrative seems to be similar for many of the full-time campus events
employees; people needed a job that could help them provide for themselves or for their family.
However, she comments on about how diverse and uniquely different each person’s story is. Some of
her coworkers once worked as engineers, teachers, administrative assistants and more. One man was an
officer in the Vietnam War who was prisoner of war for ten years while one woman immigrated here
after crossing rivers with her small children to escape persecution.

“I work with some really interesting people. They have such cool stories that I wish could be heard,” she
says. “We’re like our own little society. I think people mostly look at us and think ‘oh those are people
who really couldn’t do anything else,’ but the more you talk to people and the more you talk to students
they get past that.”

For Statnick, it’s the people that really make the job enjoyable. In addition to her co-workers, she’s
developed close relationships with some of her student workers. While some students only work for a
semester or prefer to come, work and leave, others have worked with her for all four of their college
years and took the time to get to know one another. At times, she’s even became somewhat of a second
mother, offering anything from encouragement to advice to furniture.

“My attic will be empty soon if I just have some more work-study students who decide to live here and
need a sofa,” she jokes.

As the school year comes to an end, Statnick is excited to regain a normal schedule. This past year, she
signed a nine-month contract, meaning she will have the summer off. She plans to visit her youngest
daughter in Florida, the same place she hopes to retire to. She may even spend some of her free time
going shopping with her husband and revisiting her passion for painting.

“I’d like to be a normal person and see the outside world. I just love seeing the light of day,” she says
with a smile.
Statnick taps on the door of the last study room. A young man sits at the table, staring at his computer
and intensely typing away.

Having seen him in this same room a few times within the past week, Statnick says, “I’m just here for the
trash,” and then adds, “I’m sorry if I keep bothering you.”

The young man stops typing and looks up from his computer.

“No,” he says in a serious tone, “I just come for the superb trash collection.”

The two crack a smile and Kitty chuckles as she says, “I’ll make sure to add that to my resume.”