"You Don't Have to Do Just One Thing"

Mary Charlotte Buck ’14 jokes that somewhere between children and cheese you’ll find her. “Yes, that’s my life,” says Buck, who works as a school-based counselor with the Boston Public Schools and, on the side, runs MaryCharcuterie, where she creates trendy snack boards.

“It started as a hobby at a time when I really needed one,” explains Buck of her charcuterie boards. The demands of working full time while also earning a master’s degree in social work from Boston University left Buck in search of a creative outlet. “I was super busy, doing a lot of brain-bending hard work, so I was looking for something fun and entertaining to do.”

A hostess at heart, Buck often made impressive cheese boards—chock full of nuts, fruits, crackers and meats—for social gatherings, family parties and her book club.

Her boards became so popular that her friends suggested she create an Instagram account to highlight them. Playing on her name, she created MaryCharcuterie and started posting photos of her platters.

“It was supposed to just be a place to show what I’d been making, but then people reached out wanting to buy them,” recalls Buck of turning her craft into a side business. “It is more than a hobby but less than a full-time job. I love social work, so the balance of both is great.”

And balance is how she connects her day job as a school counselor and her charcuterie side business. “There can be a lot of different things in life that motivate you,” Buck says—a lesson she learned as a religious studies and Spanish major and “very involved” student at Stonehill. “You don’t have to do just one thing.”