Quinnipiac’s Community Action Project (CAP) hosted a speaking event with Hands on Hartford, a local organization helping to fight homelessness.
CAP is a student-run community service organization on campus that hosts events every week, from stocking food pantries to hosting similar speaker events. Hands on Hartford is a frequent collaborator with CAP as well.
“Every year, CAP tries to partner with [Hands on Hartford] for an event,” CAP co-director Emily Vasser ‘26 (health science) said. “Every year, someone has a great story, and it’s very eye-opening.”
While they have a rotating number of speakers on staff, Hands on Hartford turned to Ralph Gagliardo for their event this week. Gagliardo has had a long and fascinating life, but he attuned his talk to his experiences of homelessness, stemming from a decade of fighting a drug addiction.
Now, Gagliardo’s talk wasn’t all bleak, but tough topics are pretty common for CAP. It can be difficult for some of their talks to get big crowds, but the co-directors were happy with the group of about 20.
“I would say it isn’t our biggest, but one of the larger,” Vasser said.
Her fellow co-director, Jake Poet ‘26 (psychology), talked about strategies to get more people in the room.
“We try to target [our talks] and send them to professors who teach in fields that might be interested in this,” Poet said. “So we send it to health science professors. We’ve also sent it to sociology professors. We think a lot of those students in those classes would greatly benefit from hearing about these subjects.”
This was just the case for Kailey Bonilla ‘27 (health science). Bonilla attended the talk for her Sociology 101 course. While attending a speaking event was required for the class, Bonilla found some interesting lessons in Gagliardo’s words.
“[Gagliardo] said that the rate of college students becoming homeless is rising, and I was like, ‘Oh, wow,’” Bonilla said. “We’re college students. That could be us, you know?”
Hands on Hartford’s first representative, Kelly Dougherty, spent the beginning of the event talking about what Hands on Hartford actually does, and went over Gagliardo’s role in the organization. Then, he went to work.
Starting as the youngest of four, Gagliardo loved the arts and did well in school. Unlike his three older siblings, who went to college, he decided to test out the trades to open his own business. He found himself in the auto industry and started making a life for himself.
Just as he was getting started, things went off the rails.
“One day, when I was driving down the boulevard in Hartford on my way back to the shop. An 18-wheeler didn’t see me, took the right turn, and crushed my little SUV I was driving, between the pole and the truck,” Gagliardo said. “I felt like I was in the trash compactor, and it was just closing in on me on all sides. And I actually thought that might be it.”
In the aftermath of the incident, Gagliardo went on opioids for the pain, and then couldn’t get off. The next decade that ensued would see him on the street, repeatedly trying to get clean, relapsing, and spending time in jail.
“Or what I like to call Connecticut’s exclusive gated communities,” he said.
The last time Gagliardo got out of prison was 13 years ago. He’s been clean ever since. He continually cited his daughter, who was a teenager at the time of his release, as his biggest inspiration through his rehab journey. Gagliardo ended with a heartwarming anecdote. After giving the commencement speech at his college graduation, his daughter shouted, “I love you dad!” He was clearly fighting tears retelling it, and found it to be one of his most important moments.
The talk was bleak, but Gagliardo’s personality shone through. His hilarious delivery, earnest storytelling, and empowering messages made him an equally effective and authentic speaker.