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2013 St. IgnATIus of Loyola Alumni AWARD Winners
Jerry Hemenway ’61 and Ed Krygier ’60
Fairfield Prep is pleased to recognize Dr. Jerry Hemenway ’61
and Mr. Ed Krygier ’60 as recipients of the annual St. Ignatius
of Loyola Alumni Award. The award, established in 2010,
recognizes those alumni who exemplify the characteristics
that Fairfield Prep seeks to instill in its graduates, specifically
open to growth, intellectually competent, religious, loving, and committed
to doing justice. The honorees will receive their awards at the school-wide
Mass of the Holy Spirit on September 6 in Alumni Hall.
Jerry Hemenway has used his career as
a pediatrician to help others, through handson
volunteer work both internationally and
at home. As a member and board member
of PRN Relief, Inc. (Physicians, Residents and
Nurses As Needed), he travels with a volunteer
medical mission team serving Jamaica twice
a year, delivering care, drugs and supplies to a
population unable to afford these services. This
growing team includes not only local physicians
and nurses from Connecticut, New York and Arizona, but also students
from Yale School of Medicine, Sacred Heart University and Molloy College.
Over the years, the team has also traveled to the Dominican Republic,
Sri-Lanka (post-tsunami), Liberia, Ethiopia and Central America. Although
the trips are one week long, the preparation proves to be year-round. Jerry
and the team contact pharmaceutical companies and colleagues to give
medications or donations to cover the cost of each trip. Twice a year, he
receives and organizes enough medication to fill up to 70 suitcases!
In addition to this work, Jerry volunteers every year as a medical staff
member at the “Hole in the Wall Gang Camp,” for children with serious
illnesses, located in Ashford, CT. He also volunteers with Wakeman Boys &
Girls Club Camps (three locations) as camp physician, monitoring records
and medical logs. He gives time as an Ignatian Mentor to students in the
“Ignatian College” at Fairfield University, where he regularly meets during
the year with a group of students to discuss various topics relating to the
students’ lives, spirituality, and finding their calling in life. He served as
a board member for 25 years with the Guenster Rehabilitation Center for
Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Bridgeport, and is currently a board member of
St. Catherine’s School for special needs children, located in Fairfield.
Growing up in Fairfield, Jerry attended St. Thomas Aquinas School. At
Fairfield Prep, he was co-captain of the Cheerleading Team (with great
memories of the 1960 State Championship Football season), and an editor
of the Hearthstone yearbook and Bellarmine Letters Quarterly magazine. He
feels the Jesuit mindset and presence in the school helped the students
mature and believe they were responsible for themselves and others.
He was challenged by the Jesuits to discern theological and faith issues.
They taught him how to study not only content, but how to approach
learning as a lifetime process. He always had an interest in medical care
and working with children, and was influenced by his mother who was
a nurse. He attended Fairfield University and Tufts University School of
Medicine, followed by interning at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical
Center of NYC, serving as a medical officer in the U.S. Navy, and pediatric
residencies at both Tufts and Bridgeport Hospital. He currently works
with Pediatric Healthcare Associates in Southport. Jerry is a diplomate of
the American Board of Pediatrics, American Academy of Pediatrics, and a
member of several medical societies.
Jerry and his wife Carol, a nurse who attended Lauralton Hall and
Boston College, have three children: Jerry ’86, a systems engineer; Molly
Dr. Jerry Hemenway volunteering his expertise in Jamaica.
(Lauralton ’87), a school teacher; and Sarah (Lauralton ’88) who married
Bob Lally ’86. They have five grandchildren, and live in Fairfield.
Jerry reflected on his work, “One of the big mysteries of life is one
gradually realizes that you are much happier in sharing than receiving.
You give of yourself. It’s not so much the things you give, but how you
give. You can give people hope, and show them that someone cares
about them. As Paul Farmer of Partners in Health has stated, ‘We really
are a nation of humanity’ – there are no borders when it comes to
relationships, contact and human responsibility. It’s a labor of love.”
Ed Krygier has organized and led Fairfield
Prep Alumni groups for over 15 years, serving
the hungry and homeless in the New Haven
and Bridgeport areas. Following a successful
career as a CPA and accounting executive, Ed
approached retirement and became more active
on the Prep alumni board, ultimately chairing
the social services committee. Influenced by
the late Bob Trudel ’60, who had been involved
with AmeriCares, Ed wanted to volunteer more. One of the board
members discussed how the alumni could promote the Fairfield Prep
name and image through a service project in the New Haven area. This
opportunity came to fruition, as the Prep alumni group was allowed to
provide its first soup kitchen a week before Christmas at the Columbus
House, whose mission is to serve people who are homeless or at risk of
becoming homeless.
Ed organized his volunteers to prepare lasagna, salad, fruit, bread
and rolls, dessert, and coffee (and later added meatballs and ziti). 75
people in the Columbus House program signed up for the Prep’s first soup
kitchen. This was the beginning of a growing plan to expand the meals
to more of the Columbus House locations. He took on additional dates
throughout the year, and increased the number of meals to include not
only the Columbus House, (which provides shelter for over 80 women and
36 Prep Today