Fred Rogers, better known as “Mister Rogers,” declared “Life is for service” in his book “Life’s Journey According to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember Along the Way.” While the final episode of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” aired long before I was born, I remember my parents sitting me and my siblings in front of the television to watch reruns of old episodes on PBS. Episode after episode, Mister Rogers would teach the importance of tolerance, inclusion, expansion of access and peaceful resolution. He addressed complex issues like death, divorce and war on his children’s show. Most of all, Mister Rogers was a champion of his community and the wellbeing of all those who were a part of it. These are the principles I aspire to emulate when I have the opportunity to build community wherever I am. 

You have probably heard of DeisHacks. The posters were everywhere. The lawn signs at every major crossroads. If you aren’t yet aware of what it is, it’s a hackathon in which Brandeis partners with 12 non-profit organizations in our local Waltham community. Teams of students compete by working to solve problems within these non-profit organizations. By the numbers, DeisHacks 2023 was a phenomenal success: Over the course of 33 projects, over 230 people engaged with DeisHacks and contributed an extraordinary 6,500 hours worth of service, with $4000 worth of prize money, 10 colleges and universities represented and first-years through graduate students participating. The numbers for DeisHacks 2023—the largest in its six-year history—have taught me two things: Given the opportunity, Brandeis students will engage with their community on an incredible scale, and there is a demand for such opportunities. 

The issue with numbers, however, is that they’re numbers. The true success of DeisHacks—in my mind, the more important success of DeisHacks—is in the students who did it and the people it has yet to reach. To most students, their involvement in the project ends when the event ends. However, that is not when their project ends. Each of the 33 projects submitted by students will be sent over to the corresponding non-profit organization. DeisHacks (through the BUS 297 class it is built off of) will continue to support these projects, providing support wherever possible to ensure they become reality for the non-profits. The true impact of DeisHacks has not yet been realized; instead, that will happen in the coming weeks as non-profits implement the projects students developed. 

Those who know me and spend any time around me know have heard me at least mention DeisHacks. (If you know me personally and you can prove to me I haven’t mentioned DeisHacks in casual conversation, email me. I’ll buy you whatever type of coffee you want.) When I agreed to be the project manager for the event, I had little idea what I was getting myself into. The 10 months I have spent working on this project with some of the most incredible people I have ever met: Professors Gene Miller and Ian Roy, as well as Leo Chen, have been there since the beginning—others (Kim Asarian, Darren Deng and Devon Sandler) joined the project a little later. DeisHacks has been an extraordinary privilege to work on. It’s been one of the most rewarding, challenging and educational experiences of my life.

So what does it mean to me? I struggle to put into words how I feel post-DeisHacks. One friend quipped, “Are you enjoying retirement?” (For reference: I’ve put in more than 200 hours into this project this semester alone.) I’ve heard, “Are you enjoying being a normal person / student / Vincent again?”, “you’re young to be a professor here” and “so you’re a full time staff member here?” from students, staff and outside vendors at DeisHacks and after. At each I would laugh, humoring whomever said it, and try my best to be modest about what I’d done for DeisHacks. Each time, I would walk away feeling as if I’d told a white lie—not to the person asking me, but rather to myself. 

It wasn’t until a friend looked me in the eye and said “You feel a little like an empty nester?” that I began to understand what DeisHacks meant to me. Now, I certainly do not know what it feels like to see a child leave home—I’m 19—but the idea that what I had spent nearly half of my experience here at Brandeis building (and even more of it involved in) had grown beyond what I had dared to dream, been amazingly successful and is now concluded, is a new feeling. It’s as wonderful as it is a little lonely. What came out of this year’s DeisHacks brings me joy. The community outpouring over this year’s DeisHacks makes me proud. The people I know these projects will impact brings me to a sharp focus: I ask myself, “what did I miss?” and “How can this be better still?” The community that formed around DeisHacks, and the communities that will benefit as a direct result of DeisHacks, are why I will continue to act as the project manager for the foreseeable future. They are what drive me. 

I have asked hundreds of people to sign up for DeisHacks. Truthfully, neither they nor I knew that when I asked them to join, I was asking “Would you join the neighborhood?”, similar to how Mister Rogers would say, at the start of every episode, “Would you be my neighbor?” I set out to build an event where people would have fun, interact with each other, maybe learn a thing or two. What I ended up building was a community that brought together Brandeis students and students from other schools for the benefit of our neighborhood non-profits. I am deeply proud of the event, and even more so of the people involved and the community formed. It grew far beyond me, or any of the other organizers: this was an exercise in service to the non-profits since the very beginning, but it became an exercise in service to the whole DeisHacks community. Few times have I felt such peace and pride, watching what I helped grow reach new heights beyond me. When I see people I know who were involved in DeisHacks, I greet them with pride and humility. Falling asleep, I think of the people I may never meet, but who may yet still be impacted by the work of myself, the other organizers and most importantly, the students who were involved in DeisHacks. For 10 months, I worked diligently on this project. For the past four weeks, I grew to live for the service I knew it would provide to countless hundreds of people. I’m an ambitious person. I have never felt such satisfaction and peace in knowing what small part I played in a far larger, far more meaningful accomplishment than one person could do in 10 semesters, nevermind 10 months. 

To everyone who was a part of DeisHacks 2023: Thank you. I could not be prouder of what we accomplished. To everyone who humored my numerous pitches: I hope you’ll humor me again. Early planning for Deisahacks 2024 has already begun. I and all of the amazing organizational staff will be putting together a neighborhood of partners, all coming together for you, the students. Ultimately, we all will come together for pillars of our community: the non-profits which serve so many. Our neighbors. So, I ask you: Would you be my neighbor?