Milton O’Brien’s journey to St. Joe’s begins over 3,000 miles away from Hawk Hill in his hometown of Las Delicias in El Salvador. 

It was there, at age 4 or 5, that the senior international business and marketing double major first met Sister Gloria Petrone, a member of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At the time, Petrone coordinated a volunteer ministry with Project FIAT (Faith in Action Together), which took her and fellow volunteers to Las Delicias. 

O’Brien remembered meeting Petrone as a young child, and the connection they shared. 

“I feel like she always took an appreciation for me,” said O’Brien. “She understood the situation I was in.”

At the time, O’Brien was no longer living with his birth parents and was in the care of his great-grandmother.

The work of Project FIAT was mainly focused on addressing housing insecurity for communities in El Salvador, but the volunteers also had programs for children. Project FIAT is no longer operated by the Handmaids, but their work lives on through a new program called Building Futures Project which continues Project FIAT’s focus on education, food assistance and housing.

“A lot of us didn’t have resources to have food at times, so they had a lunch program before we would go to school,” O’Brien said. “The volunteers would play with us, and they would do games, and you would win prizes, but it was funny prizes, like toothbrushes and toothpaste.” 

In the midst of these interactions, O’Brien recalled that Petrone seemed to take notice of him in particular. 

“She made a promise to my great-grandma to find me a home once she passed away,” O’Brien said.  

O’Brien’s great-grandmother died in 2011 or 2012. O’Brien isn’t sure of the year. But he does remember that Petrone kept her promise and began searching for a family to adopt him. 

International adoptions through the El Salvadoran government were often complicated and time consuming. Petrone knew that not everyone would be able to commit to the lengthy process and made that clear when meeting Anne O’Brien ’89 and her husband Jim O’Brien for the first time. 

“When they first met with Sister Gloria, she told them, ‘If you’re not going to be for real with this, I’m not even going to tell him that this is happening because I don’t want to break his heart,’” Milton O’Brien said.

Anne and Jim O’Brien were fully committed to what ended up being a five-year adoption process that ended on Christmas Eve 2016 when 15-year-old O’Brien arrived in the United States.

Petrone continued looking out for O’Brien until she died in 2024 at the age of 82. 

Adjusting to life in a new country was not always easy for O’Brien, and there were times he felt his background made him stand out from the rest of his classmates.  

“During that time, my accent was really thick,” O’Brien said. “It was 55 degrees, and I was wearing a winter jacket. And the kids would point it out like, ‘Hey, why are you wearing a winter jacket?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I’m cold.’ Small stuff like that, where you don’t know how you’re gonna connect with the people because you never lived it.”

The adjustment became easier for O’Brien during his time at Philadelphia Academy Charter High School (PACS). There, O’Brien further developed his leadership skills, serving as both student council president and president of the school’s National Honor Society. 

When it came time for O’Brien to look at colleges, St. Joe’s was one of 10 schools he applied to. Apart from being his mother’s alma mater, O’Brien said because of his background, he felt drawn to the school’s emphasis on community service. One day, while reviewing a St. Joe’s admissions pamphlet, O’Brien came across a picture of a St. Joe’s student doing service while wearing a Project FIAT shirt. Over the years, St. Joe’s had sent groups of students to El Salvador through the FIAT Program. 

“I think that was a little push of, ‘Okay, I’ll be on the right path if I go to St Joe’s,’” O’Brien said. 

O’Brien’s passion for community service inspired him to participate in the early arrival Philadelphia Service Immersion Program (PSIP). During PSIP, O’Brien met the Rev. Dan Joyce ’88, S.J., vice president of mission and ministry at St. Joe’s. 

The interaction was memorable for O’Brien, who recalled Joyce introducing himself in Spanish. Joyce had learned about O’Brien and his background in El Salvador through his connection with Petrone and the Handmaids. Petrone, who had kept in touch with O’Brien, reached out to Joyce after hearing about O’Brien’s plan to attend St. Joe’s. 

“It was that connection again,” O’Brien said. “Sister Gloria looking out for me.” 

O’Brien said he originally had no intention of becoming a part of the University Student Senate. He felt his time in student council at PACS had been enough for him. However, at the start of his first year at St. Joe’s, O’Brien visited Joyce on the back porch of Wolfington Hall. During this conversation, Joyce suggested O’Brien run for Senate. 

“I could see that he was a true leader and very committed to the goals and mission of St. Joe’s,” Joyce said. 

It was this push that encouraged O’Brien to run for the class of 2025 senator his first year. Since then, his roles in Student Senate have included secretary of academic affairs his sophomore year and vice president of Hawk Hill his junior year. In spring 2024, the student body elected him president.

As president, O’Brien said he strives to create an environment that is open to the cares and concerns of his fellow senators and the larger student body.

Anna Monari ’26, vice president at Hawk Hill, said she has witnessed O’Brien’s leadership in action.

“He is the type of person that really benefits from feedback,” Monari said. “Whether that be coming from the students as a whole, the community as a whole, peers, faculty or even me as a friend, he really takes everything that people say to him, and he tries to do everything that he can to accomplish it.” 

O’Brien believes that his growth as both a leader and an individual in the past few years has come from being able to share his story with others. 

“The reason I do talk about my story is to be able to recognize the resilience that you can build from things that may not be good in your life,” O’Brien said.

One way O’Brien chose to share his story was through a Day of Dialogue session he ran with Ariana Zablah Mejia ’26 in February 2024. In attendance was Peter Norberg, Ph.D., professor of English and senior associate provost for academic and faculty support. 

During the presentation, O’Brien shared a photograph that had been taken during his time in El Salvador. Norberg recognized a woman in the photograph as his wife, Elizabeth Norberg. It had been taken in 2009 during Elizabeth Norberg’s time serving with Project FIAT in Las Delicias.

In Las Delicias, Elizabeth Norberg worked closely with children like O’Brien. She remembered first meeting O’Brien when he was five years old and the way he took her hand and showed her around his town. She was moved by O’Brien’s friendly nature and the way he cared for his community. The two had not seen or spoken to each other in many years.

After the presentation, Peter Norberg went home and told his wife about the photo. Elizabeth Norberg reunited with O’Brien in May 2024. 

“I felt like my heart exploded,” Elizabeth Norberg remembered. “It was like we had never lost any time.”

During this reunion, Elizabeth Norberg gave O’Brien an album of photos she had taken in El Salvador. The album included photos of a young O’Brien and his community in Las Delicias. 

Elizabeth Norberg and O’Brien continue to keep in touch, and Norberg said she loves hearing about all that O’Brien has accomplished as a leader at St. Joe’s and beyond. 

“It doesn’t surprise me a bit,” Elizabeth Norberg said. “Milton lives his life led by his heart.”