My purpose… to move the world

It all started with Mamá Mabel and her big pot.

In my house, we always cooked for more people than could fit at the table. She has that habit, cooking in large quantities, as if she were always expecting someone else to arrive. When we finished eating, the leftovers didn’t go into the refrigerator, they got packed up and we’d go deliver them to the homeless people of the town of Juana Díaz. To me, as a little girl, that was normal. It wasn’t an extraordinary act of charity, it was simply what we did. Over time it became tradition. Thanksgiving and Christmas meant cooking for them too, and without realizing it, those people came to occupy a place in my heart that never left.

I remember my grandmother telling me once, half joking, half serious: “I want to hit the lottery, so I can get all the homeless off the streets.” I laughed, but that phrase stayed with me, because behind the exaggeration there was something real: the frustration of wanting to do more and not knowing how. I inherited that frustration and decided to turn it into a project. Finishing my degree in Industrial Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Puerto Rico and starting a master’s in Engineering Management became the bridge that let the “why” I’ve carried since childhood finally find its “how.” The Polytechnic gave me the tools to design processes, plan, and make systems serve people, and with that clarity, the idea took shape.

And the idea I imagine and want to build is an organization with centers around Puerto Rico. Spaces where a homeless person can come in and shower, eat, and get a haircut. Where no one asks anything of them in return, where they leave feeling like what they have always been: people. I don’t have a name for it yet, I don’t have the full plan, but I have something worth more than that: I know exactly why I want to do it. Mamá Mabel taught me without even meaning to, with a big pot and a lot of heart. I just want to do the same thing, on a big scale.

And with this purpose, I want to move the world.

By: Adriana Rodríguez Turpo
2026 Graduate