SERVICE
CHANGING LIVES, ONE ANTIQUE AT A TIME How Joanna Owen Schmergel ’99 put her MBA and Airborne training to use to help Boston-area students BY JANE DUNBAR
56
NORWICH RECORD | WINTER 2021
T
he Lincoln, Mass., METCO Coordinating Committee (MCC) was established in 1966 with a mission to strengthen diversity within the suburban town’s public schools, initially by organizing transportation for students of color from Boston neighborhoods. MCC had always enjoyed broad community endorsement. But as the pool of mostly older donors narrowed and the list of volunteers shortened in more recent years, the committee struggled to keep pace with its expanding wish list of initiatives they hoped to support. That’s when Joanna Owen Schmergel ’99 parachuted onto the scene. A former lieutenant in the Army’s elite 82nd Airborne Division, Joanna had moved to the predominantly white suburb in 2013 with her husband and toddler with a second child on the way. One morning six years ago, she opened her inbox to an appeal from Erica Gonella, MCC treasurer.
