Cadets and graduates of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy can be found in all corners of the world; many of their travels are attributable to their careers in the shipping, international business or energy sectors. For Massachusetts Maritime Academy Women's Lacrosse Captain Cassie Llewellyn it is the phrase "service above self" that has brought her to the nation of Uganda not once, but twice. 

Over the summer of 2019, Llewellyn, a rising high school senior and women's lacrosse standout for Fairfield Warde (CT), participated in her first service trip to Uganda with Rotary International. 

Rotary International is a global network of over 1.4 million individuals with a shared desire to create lasting change around the globe through sustainable projects. The organization is multifaceted in its mission to provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through their fellowship of business, professional, and community leaders. 

Cassie's father, Bill Llewellyn, was the impetus for her involvement with the organization. A rotarian since his college years, Bill has dedicated much of his life to seeing actionable change through Rotary International. He has worked alongside others in the organization to find pathways to raise money and find sustainable engineering solutions for the villages they sponsor. Bill, an assistant high school football coach for Fairfield Warde, has also dedicated his coaching salary to helping sponsor a family through school. 

The experience of traveling to Uganda set the younger Llewellyn on a pathway that would change the course of her life. 

"The first time I went to Uganda in high school we initiated a Borehole well project that we had been planning and raising money for with Call to Care Uganda" Llewellyn said. Learning about the planning and installation of the well started to turn the wheels in Llewellyn's mind and lead her to discover Massachusetts Maritime Academy's Energy Systems Engineering program. "I was really fascinated by the distribution system and intrigued by the design side of how it all worked," said Llewellyn. 

After committing to the Academy and Women's Lacrosse program Llewellyn arrived on campus ready to work and lead. She had two standout seasons for the Buccaneers in the midfield and was successful in the classroom as well. Although Energy Systems Engineering was fascinating, she soon discovered that another major offered at the Academy, Marine Engineering, could give her a similar understanding of engineering concepts but with the career flexibility to continue her philanthropic endeavors. 

Llewellyn explained, "I switched majors because as a marine engineer I can live and work on a ship for six months of the year and then travel and do service trips when I'm not working, that's part of why I switched majors."

Three years after her initial trip to Uganda, Llewellyn made her second service trip over the summer of 2022 alongside others to oversee the progress on the projects they had been sponsoring. 

"The well that they installed three years ago when [Rotary International] first visited in 2019 was having issues with the pump. [The pump] didn't have enough head pressure to move the well water to the top of the hill for distribution," Llewellyn said. "It was cool to reflect on what I had learned in the classroom while I was there". She laughed, "I told the engineers we met that I was still only a student, but I was able to give them my input on some potential solutions to solve the problems with the pump." 

Speaking of the impact of the wells in the region, " Ugandan women have to spend almost all of their days focused on acquiring clean water if they don't have an accessible well." She recounted what she had learned about how much of the day women spend fetching and boiling water for safe consumption creating a barrier for them to get an education. "With the well these women went from spending a whole day obtaining water to just a few hours, allowing them time to attend school and perform other functions in the communities." 

The group also built a latrine laying the brick and mortar for a school in Fort Portal, Uganda. "It was interesting to talk with people there about their wastewater management system." Llewellyn said, "I earned my grade three municipal wastewater license while studying at MMA so that was another thing I had some context for that I didn't the first time visiting." 

Llewellyn and the rest of the crew also visited Biwindi Hospital during their trip where the organization had coordinated donations of medical equipment. "That hospital is so important to the region because it is the only hospital within 8 hours [driving] where women can safely deliver babies, otherwise they would have to travel to the capital city which could take two days walking." 

Llewellyn explained that these projects are of particular importance to women in the region. "[Bwindi] Hospital has 100 - 120 births every month in their new maternity ward and it's crazy because the cost to have a baby there is 20,000 ugandan shillings which is like $6 US Dollars." 

When asked if she would return to the region on another service trip Llewellyn didn't hesitate. "Definitely." 

She continued, "I've made so many connections with people in the area especially after visiting twice. We were able to see the students who my rotary club sponsored there to attend nursing school. We met them the first time we visited and it was really important to us that we sponsored women because most of the nursing students there are men." 

After the service trip Llewellyn took a detour to Tanzania where she, her brother, father and three family friends took on the physical feat of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. As an athlete,

Llewellyn had physically prepared and knew the climb would be a challenge but she learned her greatest lesson on summit night. 

"Summit night is the hardest night of the whole climb because you have to wake up at midnight and it is pitch black and freezing. The only things you can see are the headlamps that look like they are floating above you and the stars. I was the youngest climber in our group and I learned so many important lessons during that climb but the one I learned the most was that even in the darkest moments you aren't alone." 

Summit night is known in the climbing community to be tough, both mentally and physically. "The porters started singing in the darkness in Swahili and they would include your name in the song to push you just a bit more to keep climbing." Llewellyn compared this experience to her days playing lacrosse in Buzzards Bay. "I'll never complain again about how cold I am during lacrosse season," she laughed, "nothing compared to the wind and cold I experienced during summit night." 

The whole experience taught Llewellyn a lot about herself and she will take those lessons into the leadership program at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. "Even in the darkest of times, there are so many people around you and you know you are all going through something together; everyone is struggling with something but you all have the same end goal". "As a squad leader and as a captain on the lacrosse team I try to help people get through the school because that is what was done for me. I want to pass on the idea to others not to give up and to help others, things might be hard but you can get through it."

Llewellyn is currently in her Junior year at the Academy and is a captain for the Buccaneer Women's Lacrosse team.