Garfield man shut his business amid pandemic. Now at age 66, he’s graduating from college

All through the pandemic Philip Sanzari was forced to forever shut down his 23-yr cleaning business. But as one particular chapter shut for the 66-year-previous, a further started.

On Friday, Sanzari will graduate from Berkeley University with an associate’s degree in applied science, a milestone he did not think about reaching at his age.

“When I started out, I was anxious because I hadn’t been in university considering that 1974,” claimed Sanzari, a Garfield resident of 37 several years. “I didn’t feel as nevertheless I was clever more than enough to go again to college, honestly. But in all truthfulness, I sort of misjudged myself.”

With encouragement from his pals and relatives, Sanzari enrolled at Berkeley Higher education to receive his diploma in applied science in health companies administration – healthcare Insurance policy, billing, and coding. Two several years later, he will cross the graduation phase at Prudential Centre in Newark along with 1,416 Berkeley graduates.

“You’re by no means too aged to discover, and I did it,” Sanzari reported.

The previous entrepreneur claimed he wasn’t the finest at faculty and feared he would have a difficult time completing the get the job done.

But that turned out not to be the case. Sanzari finished his associate’s diploma on line, while dealing with heart challenges and surgeries. Just after graduation, he ideas to transfer to Biloxi, Mississippi, to go after a profession in the well being treatment field, along with his lover of 43 decades, Sam Chaney.

Chaney, 69, also returned to school to get his nursing diploma once they closed down the small business that had given the two a cozy life. They both of those went back again to faculty simply because they “come to feel young” and did not want to economically depend on anybody, Sanzari said.

“We have a certain lifestyle that we have grown accustomed to. We like to do things, we like to go visit good friends, get what we want to obtain, go out to evening meal,” Sanzari said. “You can’t just sit by and are living on Social Stability.”

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Tale proceeds

Not only did he end his diploma with honors, but Sanzari also observed inspiration from his classmates who have been pursuing an instruction although working and boosting people. He, too, confronted challenges, specially in his composing class, because he in no way imagined he would write tales.

In spite of the hurdles, Sanzari was consistently named to the Berkeley University President’s List. He was also inducted into the Phi Theta Kappa Countrywide Honor Culture, which acknowledges the educational achievements of learners pursuing two-year levels.

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Kelly Berge, a professor in the Allied Overall health Division, University of Health Studies, achieved Sanzari in his 2nd semester at Berkeley Higher education.

“He was an amazing, hardworking student from Day One particular and took edge of all of the means that were being provided by the college,” she mentioned.

As Sanzari and Chaney pack up their belongings and go to the South, they are enthusiastic to begin a new journey nearer to pals, though they will depart loved ones at the rear of in New Jersey.

Wanting back again at his academic journey, Sanzari wishes he would have had the assurance to do it sooner. His assistance to others seeking to go back to university is clear-cut: Just do it.

“I have attained one thing I hardly ever had the self esteem to do,” Sanzari explained. “If you have the chance to see something by means of until eventually the end, do it, you will not regret it. I don’t.”

Jessie Gomez is a community reporter for The Document and NorthJersey.com. For endless accessibility to the most important information from your community neighborhood, please subscribe or activate your digital account nowadays.

E-mail: [email protected]

Twitter: @jessiereport

This report initially appeared on NorthJersey.com: Garfield NJ company operator graduates from Berkeley Faculty at 66