Community service and civic engagement have been large parts of my extracurricular activities in high school, particularly as a member of the National Charity League (NCL), where I spent countless hours volunteering with my mother, and my leadership roles in the Coronado High School Interact Club, where I discovered a passion for assisting young children. Through NCL, I donated my time to 17 different charitable organizations and earned the Gold Presidential Volunteer Service Award for completing over 100 hours of community service in a year. For example, I served countless meals to homeless families, collected an enormous amount of trash at various beach clean-ups picked countless buckets of weeds at Wild Willow Farms, supported disabled athletes through the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and sorted hundreds of pounds of food, and organized over 1,000 sanitation kits for Feeding San Diego.

My most meaningful experiences in NCL involved my work with Miracle Babies, which is an organization that provides direct and supportive services to families with critically ill infants in the neonatal intensive care unit. I volunteered in the annual fundraising gala each year assisted at various health fairs, stuffed thousands of care packages, and helped with the distribution of hundreds of boxes of diapers. Volunteering for Miracle Babies allowed me to have a direct positive effort on those dealing with a traumatic life event, and I learned so much from the parents who demonstrated faith, hope, and resiliency throughout their child’s health struggles.

I am also an officer in the CHS Interact club, and I am proudest of our work at an orphanage in Mexico where we provide direct support to orphaned children. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Interact members traveled to the orphanage several times a year to complete repair work on the building, play with the children, and provide donations, such as food, toys, cleaning supplies, and school supplies, which were donated by the Coronado Rotary Club and other Interact members. It brought the children, so much happiness to have us visit, donate, and support them when it seems all others have forgotten or rejected them. I will forever have a soft spot in my heart for children without a home.

I have requested that my charity award be donated to the Live Love Foundation of Salvation due to their ongoing work in supporting orphanages in Mexico and in Uganda.

Charity of choice:

$500 to Live Love Foundation of Salvation