Forty-Eight Hours on Clarendon Street

Over just 48 hours in January on the cold streets of Boston, 10 Notre Dame business students experienced a full-body plunge into two realities that exist side by side in America yet rarely intersect: the homeless community and the titans of Wall Street. “There was definitely some whiplash,” said Nathan Gafney (BBA ’27), a double major in finance and applied mathematics. “In just 48 hours, we went from walking through South Station and seeing people trying to stay warm, to meeting with business leaders who have a lot of influence and resources. Two very different worlds.” 

During the McNeill Winter Plunge, whiplash was the point. The two-day immersive experience was challenging, but it was intended as an enduring lesson in the complex relationship between business, philanthropy and service — a topic that might be described as “the business of charity.” “It was honestly kind of hard to wrap my head around,” said business analytics major Cara Finn (BBA ’28). She’d spent the night delivering food and blankets to homeless people on the streets until 1 a.m. Hours later, she and fellow students were cleaning themselves up at one of Boston’s best hotels, the Fairmont Copley Hotel, to prepare to meet with some of the top leadership in private equity, including Bain Capital and law firm Ropes & Gray. The itinerary for the McNeill Winter Plunge could have been designed by Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose paintings juxtaposed disparate ideas and experiences in ways that somehow felt entirely coherent. After arriving in Boston, students zigzagged between the raw reality of unhoused and the highest levels of business leadership. They slept on the floor and in the pews in the basement of Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, joined Dr. Jim O’Connell’s (ND ’70)Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program (BHCHP)outreach teams in the streets serving Boston’s “rough sleepers” and ate with the residents of the Pine Street Inn —something that had never been done before by volunteers in the shelter’s 57-year existence. The students spent time with the people who use the shelter’s services and heard many of their life stories. At its most profound level, the program is a learning experience to instill awareness. No one expects the level of housing insecurity in Boston to be greatly affected by 10 Notre Dame students visiting over two days. What was greatly affected were the students. “As I processed the experience, I realized the point was not just to contrast the two worlds. It was to see how connected they actually are,” said Gafney, who interned at a New York hedge fund over the summer. “Business decisions, real estate markets, investment priorities, healthcare systems and public policy all help shape the conditions that make homelessness visible in places like South Station. “The Plunge forced me to hold both realities together — the personal reality of people suffering on the street and the structural reality of systems created by leaders, institutions and markets.”  

REVIVING THE PLUNGE

For the revived 2026 Plunge in Boston, the focus was on housing insecurity, one of the nation’s most pressing social and economic challenges. Federal data show that roughly 746,000 Americans experienced homelessness on a single night in 2025 — about 1 in every 455 people — with more than 230,000 of them living in families with children. 

Keith Anderson (BBA ’94) has a clear memory from working overnight shifts at the Lincoln Park Homeless Shelter in Chicago. Anderson grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and had never met a homeless person living on the street until he himself participated in the Urban Plunge as a Notre Dame undergraduate. After graduation, he was working his first job as an accountant for Ernst & Young in Chicago. During the busy season, he often served as the shelter’s night manager. At some point deep into the night, there would arrive a moment when people finally settled down and all was still — a rare moment of peace underscored by a soundtrack of snores of the homeless. As his career progressed from Wall Street investment banker to a healthcare industry public company CFO, the memory of the “snores” reminded Anderson of the people living in the margins. It’s the kind of awakening experience he sees as most differentiating about a Notre Dame education and what he hopes the McNeill Winter Plunge will evoke in the students. “A Wall Street mentor told me that investment bankers are on the leading edge of the fortunate curve,” said Anderson. “And with this position, we have an obligation to support those folks who are operating on the margins and just getting by.” The McNeill Winter Plunge carries on the legacy of the Urban Plunge, a long-running Notre Dame program at the now Institute for Social Concerns that dates to a 1967 weekend immersive experience in Chicago led by Holy Cross priests. The Plunge has long been a hallmark of the Notre Dame undergraduate experience, with thousands of students participating over the decades. Students traveled in groups to as many as 70 communities, embedding in community organizations, homeless shelters, health clinics, housing ministries and anti-poverty initiatives. The agenda for each site was set by the hosts in the city, but the objective was always the same: For students to understand inner-city poverty from the street-level view and to come toa deeper understanding of their social responsibility to enact Catholic social tradition’s commitment to justice, human dignity and the transformation of unjust social structures. In 2020, the Plunge was halted due to the COVID shutdown. In January 2025, Anderson approached the University with the idea of relaunching the program. Renamed as the McNeill Winter Plunge after Father Donald McNeill, C.S.C. (ND ’58), the founding director of the Institute for Social Concerns, the 2026 Plunge added a twist: In addition to exposure to those living on the margins, business students heard from executive leaders from private equity firms and other prominent organizations who are deeply involved in philanthropic and community initiatives. The 2026 McNeill Winter Plunge was led by the Institute for Social Concerns in collaboration with the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing (NDIGI) at Mendoza College of Business. Like the original Plunge, the relaunched version is a two-day immersive experience that takes place over the students’ winter break so as not to interfere with corporate recruiting, internships and their class schedules. “Wall Street values the unique profile of the Notre Dame student and yet current corporate recruiting schedules are increasingly encroaching on aspects of the Notre Dame education that make Notre Dame unique,” said Anderson. “The Urban Plunge program worked perfectly because it didn’t interfere with current corporate recruiting calendars. We thought we could resurrect the program and expose these business students to leaders of the largest charity businesses in Boston as well as leaders in the investment and private equity world who are making a significant positive difference in the Boston community.”  

THE BUSINESS OF CHARITY

The McNeill Winter Plunge involves several ways of looking at the “business of charity.” The first is a straight forward principle of Catholic social tradition: Every individual receives unique gifts and a unique vocation from God, and holiness consists in using those gifts faithfully in service to God and their neighbors. 

Emphasizing human connection and respect for the individual instills a commitment to personal philanthropy, which is an essential part of educating future business leaders, many of whom will have the opportunity to use their success and resources in service of others. The Plunge is expressly designed to bring the students into that awareness. Pre-Plunge, students read the book “Rough Sleepers” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder about O’Connell, who has dedicated his remarkable medical career to caring for Boston’s unhoused. A recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award, his compassionate and innovative approaches to service have contributed to BHCHP’s becoming the nation’s largest and most comprehensive program of its kind, and he has continued to provide medical care and humanitarian support to rough sleepers who sleep on the city’s streets. The copies of the book handed out to the students included a personal note from O’Connell. The students also visited the Center for the Homeless in South Bend and met with executive director Steve Camilleri (MNA ’01, ND ’94). “We walked in the door and Steve started listing off facts about every one of us because he’d studied our résumés and researched us and memorized everything,” said Finn. “He set the tone for the whole program — the idea that building trust, getting to know people, putting in the effort, especially with the homeless population, was the throughline.” The second way the Plunge challenges students to consider the business of charity is the critical role of corporate philanthropy. American companies contribute an estimated $40 billion each year to charitable causes, providing vital support for organizations that address poverty, education, healthcare, housing and other community needs. To conclude their time in Boston, the students met with Bain Capital’s head of private equity and its global general counsel, an industry head at Ropes & Gray law firm, and Jack Brennan, former chairman and CEO of the Vanguard Group and former chair of the Notre Dame Board of Trustees. The leaders discussed the importance of philanthropy and their individual philanthropic focus. They reinforced the sentiment that great organizations seek out good people to be employees. “The student leaders who joined our session brought a powerful combination of passion in their desire to pursue a career in business, while remaining firmly grounded in their faith and values,” said Michael Beauvais, a partner at Ropes & Gray. “Their commitment to leading with integrity, serving others and making a meaningful impact in their communities was truly inspiring.” 

Christopher Green, Bain Capital partner and general counsel, added that supporting mission-driven nonprofits in the places where they do business is a fundamental part of being a good neighbor. “Corporate philanthropy is critical in today’s society as corporations are members of the communities in which they operate,” said Green. “In selecting charities that I personally support, I look to nonprofit organizations that support causes I believe in, but also run their organizations with a business mindset so I know my philanthropic dollars are invested well.” A third way for students to think about the business of charity is direct involvement in the charities themselves or as board directors. Service organizations and religious orders such as the Archdiocese of Boston are huge organizations that require full accounting, finance, legal and operational teams. The Mendoza students met with senior leaders of some of Boston’s largest charitable organizations, who emphasized that their responsibility to use resources wisely may be even greater than that of public corporations because human lives are directly affected by their decisions. Each one explained the complexity of their nonprofits, their funding sources and expenses, and their important role in the Boston community. For leaders such as Lyndia Downie, the longtime CEO of Pine Street Inn, and Archbishop Richard Henning, every dollar entrusted to their organizations is a gift that carries an obligation to serve others faithfully. For Downie, those resources help support more than 2,400 people experiencing homelessness each day. For Archbishop Henning, they sustain the ministries and operations of more than 240 parishes across the Archdiocese of Boston. Catholic Charities Boston CEO Kelley Tuthill (ND ’93) explained the vast operations of Catholic Charities to the students and how the City of Boston and the State of Massachusetts have come to rely on the organization to support more than 100,000 people every year. The students also visited Breaktime, a Boston-based nonprofit with an innovative model for helping hundreds of young adults experiencing housing insecurity to achieve economic mobility. Co-founder Connor Schoen, who studied applied mathematics and economics at Harvard University, decided to put his other aspirations on hold to start the nonprofit. His story emphasized the idea that leadership and impact can be cultivated as readily in the nonprofit sector as in the corporate world. “Starting, scaling and leading a nonprofit has empowered me with the most incredible education I could ask for,” said Schoen. “My work at Breaktime has taught me about management, finance/accounting, strategic planning, commercial real estate and so much more. This job has also given me a unique opportunity to build relationships and partnerships with key business leaders across my community.” Schoen and Breaktime recently purchased a $6.3 million building in downtown Boston with the support of some of city’s most prominent business and philanthropic leaders. Schoen, who is now 27, was named one of the 150 Most Influential Bostonians by Boston Magazine in 2026. “I know I did not choose the traditional path for an applied math and economics major, but I am so grateful for the learning and growth opportunities this path has made possible,” said Schoen.

EXPANDING THE VISION

NDIGI and the Institute for Social Concerns reviewed more than 60 applications for the 10 spots in the 2026 McNeill Winter Plunge. The students represented all five business majors. Most were juniors and seniors. 

Anderson and NDIGI hope to organize similar McNeill Winter Plunge programs with Mendoza students in the four other major financial center cities where some of the largest private equity firms in the world are located: Park Avenue, New York; LaSalle Street, Chicago; California Street, San Francisco; and Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles. “The McNeill Winter Plunge is a creative, innovative solution to an evolving landscape and timeline for our students,” said Patty Brady (BBA ’00), the Cusumano Family Managing Director of NDIGI. “Students come to Notre Dame because they want to explore different sides of themselves. They know we’re going to focus on educating the heart and mind. But then they find themselves in a time crunch. Hopefully, through this experience, we create opportunities for this exploration even earlier on their journeys that will impact the rest of their time here on campus.” For the students, the 48 hours was admittedly full of uncomfortable moments, from the strangeness of sleeping in the big, dark, echoing cathedral to the jarring juxtaposition of being presented with a large, sumptuous breakfast after having spent the night giving out food packages to people seeking warmth in a bus station. Ultimately, it was the “twist” that Gafney and Finn were left reflecting on as they returned to campus. “What made the experience powerful was seeing both sides in close proximity,” said Gafney. “Among the homeless, I saw vulnerability, resilience and the need for dignity. Among business leaders, I saw the possibility that power and success can be used responsibly. The commonality is the belief that business is not morally neutral. It can be a force for good, but only if leaders are formed to see the human beings affected by their decisions.” Finn agreed that connecting with vulnerable people living on the street will impact her for a lifetime. “When I was on the plane ride home, I wasn’t like, ‘Wow, I have ultimate clarity on everything,’” said Finn. “It’s about planting seeds and it’s why I keep seeking out opportunities like this. We weren’t going to save the world or move the needle that much in 48 hours, but we could be there and make conversation with people. “Everyone deserves the same respect in those small moments. Look people in the eye, give them the time of day. That’s what the experience opened my eyes to.”