Syracuse High School
Attending: University of Utah
Community Volunteer

When I was born, my parents were both still teenagers. While I know they would never take back having me, it wasn’t lost on me how difficult things were because of it. They were lucky enough to have constant help from family and friends, especially when my dad was diagnosed with severe chronic pancreatitis. Because of their struggles, my parents made sure to enforce the importance of helping others whenever possible similar to how they’d been helped.

A lot of the help I’ve been able to give as a teenager has related to kids within my community. When I was about twelve, I started offering my neighbors babysitting services for free when they had appointments, went grocery shopping, or needed a night to themselves. Most of the time, the families didn’t have a lot of income coming in and were concerned about being able to feed their families, so I made sure they came home to a clean house and didn’t have to worry about things I could easily take care of.

Once I got into junior high, I decided to get my first job at the local recreation center. While I was just looking to earn some money at the time, this place became a second home for me because I was able to constantly interact with the entire community. I was teaching kids how to play sports, which was something I’d loved growing up. In addition, when I was old enough to drive, I was promoted to supervisor. This allowed me to run our summer kids camp program.

The recreation center has allowed me to not only interact with families and their children on the clock, but it also led me to being an assistant coach for some of the younger ages off the clock. The kids in these programs have become my favorite part of my weeks throughout the last four years.

As a high schooler, I was also able to join the Syracuse Youth Court Program, a restorative justice program within Utah. I served as a head judge on a panel that focused on creating personalized restorative plans for juveniles within the community in order to ensure they didn’t fall into a repetitive pattern of committing unlawful offenses. Within this program, I’ve learned a true appreciation for all that I have and gained a great empathy for the trials kids my age go
through.

In addition, as a high schooler, I’ve been involved in the mock trial, debate, DECA, and FBLA clubs within the leadership teams. As the head captain of mock trial, I’ve been able to teach the club members how to conduct proceedings in competition and speaking strategies that I’ve found benefit my own performance. I spend my first period every day of the week in debate working with the team members to ensure they have skills to place and succeed on the team. DECA and FBLA have also allowed me to work with similar skills while also leading community service events. This year, we are launching a food drive for our school pantry and sponsoring a family for Christmas while working to raise funds for our school's teen center.

Lastly, and perhaps the thing I’m most proud of, is my involvement in fundraising events with members of the community who are raising funds for chronic illness and cancer treatments. Through the Anything for a Friend foundation, I got to volunteer and assist in organizing a fundraiser Carmel Prows, for one of the neighbors I babysat for, who had stage four cancer. We raised just under $20,000 at the event and through donations, which included a donated swing set for her son. I’ve also done giving trees, trees with money and gift card donations for families going through financial hardships, every year through the same foundation with a few other family members and friends.