MSW candidate and interpreter cares for DSS clients with empathy

By Chuck Gordon

The key to being a good social worker, says Doralisa Pellane, is simple: be a good listener, and put yourself in the client's shoes.

Luckily for the Union County Department of Social Services, Pellane does those things well, and on Friday she will be one step closer to becoming a social worker after she receives her master of social work degree from Wingate.

Pellane is one of 138 graduate and professional students earning degrees on Friday as the University winds down the academic year with the first of two commencement ceremonies. Degree-earning graduate students will wrap up their Wingate careers starting at 9 a.m. under the oaks on the Academic Quad. On Saturday, undergraduates will receive diplomas in a ceremony also starting at 9 a.m. on the Quad.

Twenty of the students who will receive their degrees on Friday make up the first cohort of graduates in the master of social work program, an impressive achievement, considering that Dr. Wendy Sellers, founding director of the program, had initially hoped to attract 15 students in the program's first year.

Pellane says she was eager to join the program after meeting Sellers. Pellane graduated with her bachelor's degree from Wingate in December of 2023, and at the time she didn't know the University was even starting an MSW program.

"I was like, 'Now what am I going to do?'" she says. "'I have to start looking for a school. You know, it's probably going to be out of state.' I mean, all of those thoughts came to my mind.

"Then I learned that Wingate was going to have an online program. As soon as I met with Dr. Sellers and listened to her journey, and then learned about her experiences and everything that she has been through, she's a role model and an inspiration. So I said, 'You know what? I would love to be in your program.'"

Pellane has been a model student, Sellers says, and the empathy piece is key. Pellane's ability to put herself in clients' shoes is authentic. "I've been in a situation where we needed resources and we didn't know where to go," she says.

Long before she started working as an interpreter for Union County DSS seven years ago, Pellane and her family - mother, father and one sister - immigrated to the United States from Venezuela, soon after Pellane graduated from high school in the 1990s. None of them spoke English, and none had a job lined up.

Stepping off the plane in New Jersey from their tropical South American homeland was like landing on another planet. It was difficult navigating a busy, urban environment without knowing the language, and the weather was unlike anything they'd experienced before.

"Standing at the bus stop was hard," Pellane says. "You had to make sure that you start organizing yourself, making sure that you know the bus number. You're not gonna miss the bus, because then you're standing for longer. And then there were a lot of blizzards.

"It was a culture shock in a way. We didn't feel afraid, but somehow shy, because we didn't know exactly what to do."

Pellane's parents took jobs in factories, but they wanted Pellane and her sister to learn English first, so they enrolled at a local community college. Pellane was insistent that she help with household expenses, so she eventually got a job in retail.

She was learning English but was hardly fluent, and her boss knew no Spanish.

"It was a very good complement, going to school and then interacting and using English at work," she says.

The family moved to North Carolina about 15 years ago, and Pellane started working as a teacher's assistant in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. That's when she realized she might want to do social work of some sort.

"We used to do home visits, and I knew exactly what the language barrier was, their struggles, their difficulty adapting to the country," Pellane says. "I was in that position before, so I understood exactly how the process went. Maybe the circumstances were not exactly the same, but somehow they are related. You understand. You can feel exactly what that family is going through."

Pellane started working as an interpreter for Union County Human Services seven years ago, helping social workers with cases involving members of the county's sizable Hispanic population.

After seeing up close the need in Union County, she hopes to one day become a therapist, though she has to pass the social-work licensing exam first. In the meantime, she'll continue to promote the program to her colleagues.

"I love my instructors. I love the Bulldogs. I love Wingate," Pellane says. "I have no words to express how grateful and blessed I am, because Dr. Sellers is not just a director of the program. She opened a huge door, not just for me, but I have some coworkers here that are joining the program."

"Doralisa has served as the student representative on the Wingate-MSW Advisory Committee and has been an active ambassador of the program through her employment at Union County Human Services," Sellers says. "She is always eager to volunteer with various service projects both on and off campus. Her meaningful dedication to the Wingate University MSW program will have a transformative impact on campus, in Union County, and in the broader beloved community."

"I feel that I cannot change the world," Pellane says, "but at least I can make a difference one family at a time."

May 6, 2026