During the pandemic, the once-bustling newsroom at the Sun Journal went quiet. Most of the time, editor Mark Mogensen and I stared at our screens and talked on the phone, with only an occasional diversion from one of our great photographers coming or going. Most days, everyone else worked from home.

Then Vanessa Paolella showed up.

An intern from Bates College, where she studied geology and ran cross-country, Vanessa suddenly offered a nonstop stream of questions and a determination to master the odd skill of journalism. Our dreary days were gone.

Vanessa, the editor of Bates’ student newspaper, proved a force of nature, tackling tough stories and great features while quizzing everyone she ever ran across.

Over the next few years, she worked as an intern at the Maine Monitor and then returned to us after graduation in 2021 as a full-time reporter who proved her mettle with many stories about education and more. Her energy and enthusiasm fueled all of us to tackle more and aim higher.

Like any sane young person, Vanessa wondered about embarking on a career in a field as iffy and underpaid as journalism. And she pondered how she might find or create a niche within the profession that would expand to fulfill her ambition.

Then one day she asked me what I thought of an idea she had: Should she join the Peace Corps?

She signed up and landed in a tiny village in Madagascar, far removed from the cozy confines of Bates or the joys of living in Lewiston. In short, not the most impoverished spot anywhere, but close enough.

In a series of letters from Madagascar, printed in the Sun Journal, Vanessa detailed her experiences and told us what she learned, including how to kill a chicken.

I wondered for a time what she offered the people there. Journalism and geology weren’t high on their list of needs. But I figured it out when I met one of her friends, a Malagasy teen named Tahiry Andrianotahiana, who came with Vanessa to Youth Journalism International’s global conference in South Africa last summer.

For Tahiry, the trip was a wonder. She’d never flown on a plane, never seen the ocean, never imagined much of what she experienced with a couple of dozen young people from around the world who embraced her completely.

I watched Tahiry looking at everything day after day with a huge smile. She just radiated happiness. That’s when I realized what Vanessa and people like her offered Tahiry and her community: hope.

What people want, no matter where they are, is to be safe and respected, prosperous enough so they don’t have to worry about food and shelter, and to feel like they matter.

Just by being there, Vanessa sent a powerful message: that this little whirlwind of a woman gave up her life here in the United States to go there and offer help. She could provide some practical tips, sure, but it was her presence that mattered most.

Vanessa was an emissary from the faraway world with running water and streaming services, real-life proof that Tahiry and her community weren’t forgotten or unimportant. They mattered enough that a bright young woman came to stay for a couple of years, a symbol of the amazing promise of the Peace Corps.

Down the road, maybe Vanessa will return to journalism. After all, she knows quite a bit now about bringing hope to hard places.