Jacob Bush said to his wife just the other day that whatever he does for a living, he wants to be able to come home and say, “Today I made somebody’s life even marginally better. I made things a little less difficult for them today.” He can do that, he said, every day that he works at Sister Visitor Center.

As an outreach associate, Jacob helps people sign up for SNAP benefits, better known as food stamps. He looks primarily for people who have a hard time accessing the system because they have little or limited access to computers, smart phones, and transportation, or because they don’t have homes. “I contact a lot of people by phone, but I’ve learned it’s really important to go where people congregate,” he said. He often signs up people for food stamps at shelters.

Jacob earned a bachelor’s degree in social work in 2017 and a master’s in public administration in 2019 from the University of Louisville and graduated with honors both times. He first worked with Catholic Charities as a practicum student with MRS in 2016 and “always kept Catholic Charities in mind” as a place to land after school. He joined Sister Visitor Center in 2020.

Jacob describes himself as “a big music guy” who will “dig and dig and dig” to find as many cool artists as he can. He’s a fan of music that makes him feel something, that provokes a visceral response, and, for that reason, doesn’t limit the genres he listens to. He recommends Blood Orange for others looking for something other than what plays on the radio. Blood Orange, a moniker for Dev Hynes, is a little bit soul, a little bit funk, and a little bit “pretty much anything.” He’s not a fan of country music per se, but enjoys “stripped down country music with an acoustic guitar and a three-piece band” and recommends artists Sturgill Simpson, Margo Price, or Tyler Childers who “fall back on the traditions” or country music. Recently, he’s been listening to a lot of Punjabi music that introduces “all these sounds and all these feelings.”

Jacob also enjoys watching and analyzing martial arts, especially boxing. He said he enjoys the “anthropological side of it” noting that even in the same discipline an observer can discern cultural differences in style. Generally, for example, boxers from Japan show more efficiency in their movements while Americans are extremely well conditioned and tend to “throw a whole bunch of things at the wall and see what sticks, thinking they will be able to our endure their opponent.”

Around Louisville, Jacob enjoys the food scene, especially Indi’s chicken (“a staple of Louisville”), Shreeji (“a friend said eating here is like seeing a new color”), and Vietnam Kitchen (“the pineapple curry is the best dish in Louisville.”).

Jacob and his wife share their home with two tuxedo cats, Romulus and Remus, and a French bulldog named Sebastian who is “notoriously spiteful and the most troubling of the three.”

Jacob said the most surprising thing about him is probably that his life “is not terribly thrilling or outside of the box” because “I look like a skate punk with tattoos and piercings.”

In reality, he said, “I’m just a very laid back, older-than-my-years person who likes to sit in my home having drinks with friends listening to a country album on the turntable. People are surprised by that because I look like I’d be more comfortable in a mosh pit.”

And he is, by the way, equally comfortable in a mosh pit.

Jacob said one of the things he appreciates most about his work at Catholic Charities is making personal connections. “You know that old saying, ‘Stop and smell the roses?’ I say, stop and listen to a story. Even if it’s a hard story, even if it’s not fun to listen to, sometimes just hearing where another person is and what another person is going through can be really impactful to both of you.”