Seeds of encouragement through Bona Buddies helped put Pamela Say-Witter, '01, on the path to success

When I was a little girl — growing up on a busy downtown street in the small city of Olean — I faced distinct challenges. My family was economically disadvantaged. Dad made $15,000 a year driving 400 miles a day to support a family of five. Mom cleaned houses on the side. This often meant buying clothes at St. Vincent DePaul, eating more bologna sandwiches and spaghetti than I care to remember, and walking blocks with baskets of clothes to the laundry mat. In our town it meant a lesser social status and fewer opportunities. It also meant being exposed to violence, addiction, and issues of untreated mental disorders in my neighborhood and sometimes my extended family. At times, I found myself on the receiving end of physical and emotional abuse. Though the seeds of dysfunction were planted, and would play out in my teenage years, something else — something much more powerful — would overcome them.

Other seeds were planted in those early years — seeds of love and kindness, attention and encouragement. One person who planted those seeds was Cindy Ostuni. Cindy was a Bonaventure student who volunteered for the Bona Buddies program. I was her “little sister.” Nearly every month for two years, Cindy drove her car from campus to my house on South Second Street. She took me to University Ministries and the campus center where we played games, ate snacks, watched movies, and enjoyed holiday parties. More importantly, though, we talked. When I was with Cindy, I was the only person in the world. We made each other smile. It’s hard to put into words what that means to a child facing challenges. Community programs like Bona Buddies may be the only counter-attack a child has to heal dysfunction.

Eventually I would become a St. Bonaventure University student myself through the Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP). I earned a degree in Communications and later an M.B.A. Today, I own a niche consulting company called Seed Planters, through which I help people, nonprofits and communities thrive. I also serve as the Vice President for Institutional Advancement at D’Youville College in Buffalo, N.Y. As a mom and a professional, I see the life-altering challenges young people often face. We must continue to nurture them, so the seeds of encouragement can bloom — to change lives through loving kindness. I would not be where I am today without people like Cindy and programs like Bona Buddies. I am eternally grateful for the love she showed me so many years ago.

Response from Cindy Ostuni...

I am so incredibly touched by Pam’s testimonial, it brings me to tears. There is no greater gift than to find out you mattered to someone.  I never could have imagined the impact of our time together.  It was easy and fun to be with her.  She was sweet and kind; drew me pictures and wrote poems.  I can still see her smiling face.  Whenever I went to pick her up, her  parents always welcomed me into their home.

The Bona Buddies program offered me an opportunity not only to be a part of Pam’s life, but to learn how to be there for a child, an experience I hadn’t known before then.  It allowed me to live out the messages I got growing up from my grandmother who said, “Do good and forget,” and from my mother who, when I questioned her at a very young age about why a man was living on the streets responded, “Because not one person cared about him.” 

There is always so much that we can feel grateful for, but putting our gratitude into action is what Bona Buddies and other programs at St. Bonaventure allow us to do.  They provide a vehicle by which we can offer the care we’ve been given to others.  As if we extend a thread of love to the next person who then takes it and passes it on, weaving us and knitting us together by love.  This is what the world needs more of, and this is what Pam has made her life’s work. I am blessed that our lives have touched one another.