The Career Employees' Council (CEC) is the representative voice for the Career employees of FSCJ, with the goal to be committed to the continuous development of a collaborative work environment whereby the value and respect of Career employees are elevated through increased recognition, involvement and opportunities to achieve a higher degree of excellence. In this spirit, we put a "spotlight" on one of our members each month.

October’s Career Employees' Council (CEC) Spotlight illuminates Program Coordinator for the H.O.P.E. Food Pantry, Ashlie Barker-Empleo. Ashlie has worked at FSCJ for nine years, and has been in her current position with the H.O.P.E. (Helping Out People Every day) Food Pantry for four years. Her previous five years at FSCJ were spent as an Advisor II in Student Engagement where she oversaw the food pantry program and other areas in the department.

The focus for Ashlie is to oversee the programmatic and budgetary functions of the grant the College received from the Florida Blue Foundation in 2021. She noted, “Our program aims to address food insecurity among our FSCJ students by providing them non-perishable food so they may be able to better focus on their academic studies without the added barrier of figuring out where their next meal will come from.”

She aids student workers to maintain open hours of operation at two physical food pantries located at Downtown and South campuses. The program could not run without the amazing student worker staff and she is eternally grateful for their hard work serving our students while maintaining their coursework! Ashlie also focus on the College’s partnership with Feeding Northeast Florida to help stock the pantry shelves and do the shopping to buy food for our food pantries, deliver food to students who are not able to shop at our Downtown and South Campus pantries through our mobile food pantry van, and pick up any donations that are dropped off at the FSCJ campuses and centers. In addition, she works collaboratively with Student Engagement, The Foundation, The Grants Department, Culinary, Aquaponics, The Nursing Department and many other areas and departments to provide resources and funding to continue offering support to our students whether that is through financial literacy, health literacy, or nutrition education.

What Ashlie likes most about her job is it does not feel like a "job" most days and that is an incredibly special thing to have. Ashlie said, “I love being able to work with students and provide them with a resource they may not be able to obtain anywhere else in their life. I love working with a college full of talented and colleagues with a service-oriented heart that are so willing to support the H.O.P.E. food pantry and all our lofty goals for the purpose of lifting our students to a higher level of success.”  A favorite thing about her role is simply being afforded the opportunity to be a part of a project that has grown from such a small seed of hope for students, into an ever-expanding program that our students have grown to rely on and love so much. Seeing the joy on our students’ faces when they come to shop for food in our food pantries and hear their stories of the recipes, they will make that evening and their wins in the classroom is unmatched.

Her contribution to the Career Employee Council is a shining example of the amazing employees at FSCJ. Ashlie believes in encouraging fellow colleagues by leading with a positive attitude and professionalism and volunteering to participate in a variety of college committees in support of the CEC.

She holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Texas A&M University and a Master of Science in Psychology from Angelo State University.

Ashlie has been the service chair for the AFC for the past couple of years, had the opportunity to serve on several hiring committees and the first round of the FSCJ Succession Planning Application Screening Committee. She also has had the pleasure and honor to serve on every planning committee for FSCJ's Giving Tuesday events since they began around 2017!

Ms. Barker-Empleo volunteers outside of FSCJ. She spends her time volunteering with several organizations in the Duval and Clay County area including Feeding Northeast Florida, Lutheran Social Services, Beaches Habitat for Humanity, and most recently, Middleburg Athletic Association. She has also volunteered for about 5 years for the City of Jacksonville while serving as a commissioner on the Mayor's Commission on the Status of Women.

When she is not working is cheering her 4.5-year-old son on in tee-ball and helping with team mom duties, she makes and sells decorated sugar cookies when time allows, going to Disney with family, and loves focusing her health and wellness by working out several times a week.

Our spotlight seeks to showcase a CEC representative from each campus/center at least once a year. Nominations for the spotlight may be directed to the CEC Publicity Committee Chair Vanessa Gordon at CEC@fscj.edu. Learn more about CEC on our SharePoint website, https://fscj.sharepoint.com/teams/CareerEmployeeCouncil.