Throughout my high school career, I have spent countless hours volunteering to my community. Being apart of multiple clubs and organizations, I have had several opportunities to help out those in need. Any time I have the opportunity to give back to my community is incredibly rewarding and enriching, and I absolutely love volunteering my time to help others. However, one opportunity in particular has truly changed my life. After one of my basketball practices, my coach asked a few girls if they could volunteer their time to coach a recreational basketball team. Seeing that there were few volunteers, I stepped up with my sister and we took on the challenge of coaching a 5th grade basketball team. I hoped I could teach them how to play hard and be someone they could look up to. Little did I know that the girls would be the ones to teach me some true life lessons. …show more content…
After a few drills I realized just how wrong I was. Needless to say, the first few practices were excruciating. We spent hours trying to explain how to do a simple layup. My sister and I felt helpless; they just didn’t seem to understand what we were teaching. I can remember thinking to myself, “What did I get myself into?” But then things started to get better. Slowly but surely, I began to see progress in their abilities. The girls started to pick up on what we were doing, and we all started having more fun at practices. I started to talk to the girls on a more personal level, and I grew a close relationship to each and every one of them. We had a losing season that year, but the girls were always so encouraging to one another. They never let a loss get to them, and I started to learn how important staying positive is to
Ever since I was a young student, teachers knew that I was not a normal kid. These teachers saw qualities in me that they could not see in many students at that age level. They saw a child who had a profound love to know more and had the ambition of a decorated Olympic swimmer to learn not just the material that was being taught but why it is being taught and how I can I use this information to make people’s lives better. Fast-forward to today, and you can clearly see that not much has changed except my determination to learn and my love to help others has done nothing but expanded.
Outside of Academics, I have spent hundreds of hours helping my community and bettering the lives of others. To elaborate, I spent this time volunteering in church youth ministries, tutoring various levels of mathematics, and serving as Senior Patrol Leader (SPL) in Boy Scouts. Of all the service I have done, I believe I have improved the lives of others most remarkably through my role as SPL. In this position, I have had the opportunity to forge the future leaders of our community by instilling them with a strong moral compass, various leadership skills, and inspiring them to achieve highly. I accomplished this through a combination of acting as a role model and as a leader, which has given me countless opportunities to inspire and teach them through my actions. In these positions I had to always act moral through making the most responsible choice in every situation, I had to sometimes bWhen I first came into this position, our troop consisted of a bunch of rowdy boys who were only part of the troop because their parents thought that it was a good idea for their future. Over time I was able to develop the boys into young men bThrough a combination of role modeling and teaching, I have helped many young men develop a strong moral compass, forging them into tomorrow’s leaders. Through delegation, planning, empowerment and education, I have had the opportunity to positively influence life-long intrinsic values in young impressionable boys. These once young boys, are now
I have been a part of multiple pep rallies and am a role model to younger students. One moment, in particular, stands out to me on how much difference I can make in younger children. My new cheer coach had asked if anyone would be interested in volunteering their time to help the middle school squad learning the cheers. Being Varsity Cheer Co-Captain, I was more than happy to oblige. It was a no-brainer to help out because cheer is one of my favorite things. As I laced up my cheer shoes, I glanced up, I noticed the fresh-faced cheerleaders who timidly walked into the gym. They reminded me of me at that age, afraid that they didn't have what it took to be a cheerleader. However, as practices went on, they became more confident in their abilities. Volunteering my time was well worth it, I got to see the cheerleaders grow into more confident cheerleaders and people.
My community is Alpena MI, it's on lake huron usually it's very cold. I am going to make my community Alpena beloved by creating a new yearly tradition. That tradition will be a winter bonfire at a Bayview park. This new tradition will unite the community through food, sharing, and togetherness.
I have been a part of multiple pep rallies and being a role model to younger students. One moment, in particular, stands out to me on how much difference I can make in younger children. My new cheer coach had asked if anyone would be interested in volunteering their time to help the middle school squad learning the cheers. Being Varsity Cheer Co-Captain, I was more than happy to oblige. It was a no-brainer to help out because cheer is one of my favorite things. As I laced up my cheer shoes, I glanced up and I noticed the fresh-faced cheerleaders who timidly walked into the gym. They reminded me of me at that age, afraid that they didn't have what it took to be a cheerleader. However, as practices went on, they became more confident in their abilities. Volunteering my time was well worth it, I got to see the cheerleaders grow into more confident cheerleaders and
I soon discovered that the girls on the “A” team were a close-knit group and were not exactly thrilled that a player from the “B” team was now playing with them. I had already learned that hard work leads to success, so I made it my business to win their respect. I went from riding the bench to becoming a starter. One of my coaches had a saying that still sticks with me. “Success breeds success” he used to tell us. He was right! My game became like a snowball rolling down a hill. The girls who had ignored me soon became my teammates in the truest
Being in a school that brought students from various counties and cities with different backgrounds, beliefs, and perspectives, opened my eyes to seeing just how diverse humanity is. In a time when everyone is struggling with personal problems, I know how monumental a simple volunteer act can be. One of my favorite acts of service is tutoring. I tutored an elementary-aged girl for two years in Fort Lee and I will always remember those two years as the most fulfilling. Education is so precious, and children are the most open to it. Not only was I able to teach her math and reading comprehension skills, but how to carry herself as a smart and extraordinarily capable young lady. In return, she taught me patience and how sometimes you just need to approach a problem differently to see the
Four years ago during the summer before my first year of high school, I started volunteering as coach of a fourth grade cheer squad with three of my friends. We needed to teach twenty-eight girls a one-minute dance and a hello cheer before their first game. I went into that first practice very naive, believing the girls would listen and do as I say. That practice turned out to be a complete mess. The kids jumped all over me, would not pay attention for more than three motions, and repeatedly asked me random questions about the things I liked. That two hour practice was one of the most hectic and frustrating moments I have experienced, but, at the same time, it was new, exciting, and entertaining. The past years of coaching have allowed me to form strong relationships with these girls to the point where I see them as my little sisters. Being their coach involves more than just teaching them cheers and dances, sometimes I have to settle their differences, comfort them, and let them have fun. When the girls reached sixth grade, the team started to go through drama. One practice, two girls
...lowing me to have first hand experience with young children, and also to see the teaching process from the teacher perspective as well as the student perspective (I at one time attended the very same camp). I greatly enjoyed this experience, and I am forever thankful to the Batavia Basketball Program, who allowed me to do this service for the kids.
Over the past few years I have volunteered as an usher at my church, as a food vender at the PGA Honda Classic, helping my best friends mom in her classroom, working a food stand at a local softball tournament, as an assistant coach to a 10U travel softball team, and as a camp counselor at a softball camp. Personally, I think that being an assistant coach for a 10U travel softball team helped shape me a lot. Helping coach the younger travel team felt great to give back to the community, and it made me think of where my own softball journey began. I absolutely loved coaching the younger girls because I am now much more experienced in the game and can help them a lot more and get them stronger so that they can excel more in the game. I want them to love the sport just as much as I did when I was younger so that their love for the game will grow even more just as mine did. Coaching these girls was one of the best things I could’ve ever done. Talking to the girls about when I started softball, what my favorite part of the game is, going to college to play the game I love, how much they love the game now, and how they’ll all be in my shoes in a matter of years had me grinning from ear to ear. I loved every minute of it, I loved hitting to the girls, working on their fielding, pushing them to be their best, making sure they put 110% effort into everything they did, and
This team had 15 kids on the roster who have never played baseball in their life. The first few practices were rough but slowly and slowly we could see things falling into place. Finally the season started and it wasn’t very pretty. We would the first game but ended up losing the next 4 making our record 1-4 with only 4 games left and needing to win-out to make playoffs. The big problems we faced as a coaching staff were that the kids didn’t see us as coaches, they saw us as older kids and the same could be said about the parents. Practices started having only 5-7 kids at a time and we couldn’t get anything done. When I got home one day I typed up an email to all the parents. “Dear Parents, it starts with you!” The email went on and talked about their kids not being able to get better because you don’t bring them to practice and it shows on game day. If you do not bring them they are not going to start and it all starts with you as a parent. Luckily for us games kept getting rained out and it gave us more and more chances to practice, this time with all 15 players. Finally the first game came sent the email was sent and we won 17-1. After the game me and the coaching staff just had one quick thing to say to everyone. “It starts with you parents. You buy into what I am doing as a coach and we will get results like this every game.” We ended up winning
As an African American woman, I have lived and worked in underserved communities and have experienced personally, the social and economic injustices grieved by underserved communities and the working poor. All of which, has increased my desires to work with such populations. A reserved person by nature, I have exposed an inner voice that I was oblivious to. I have expressed my inner voice to those living in underserved communities, who are seeking social and economic stability. I have come to classify and value the strength I have developed by the need, to survive in an underserved community. I use these as my continuous struggle against the social and economic injustices that I have experienced, as a product of an underserved community and as an African American woman. I have continued my struggle to overcome the barriers from my upbringing in an underserved community.
During the summer of 2009 I had the opportunity to work as a camp counselor at an all girls camp. It was my first job and as any teenager I was excited to make my own money to spend it on the latest fashions. My older sister had previously worked at the same camp and had already prepared me for what was to come but nothing could have prepared me for what was in store. Every week there was a new group of girls. This particular year the camp director decided to do something different by dedicating a week to a group of girls from a foster care facility in Rosemead California.
First I’ll talk about how the players’ behavior was managed throughout the practice. The coach interacted very well with the players; she was constantly teaching and instructing on certain details of every drill. When a girl didn’t get the drill or couldn’t master the technique, she calmly would stop and help her and make the rest of the team listen so they didn’t miss the full instruction. The coach seemed to be positive most of the time, unless a girl was talking while she was instructing, then I could see the frustration in her tone as she talked to the team. Other than that, the positivity throughout the team was pretty good. However, even though the coach was positive as she critiqued the girls, I didn’t see the same
As a native of Lancaster, I feel an obligation to act and do something that will benefit my community. I am well aware of the many perils that youth face, and these obstacles can be extremely difficult to overcome without positive figures to aid and provide guidance. There is a great need for an intensive mentoring program within the community to positively influence the lives of youth. For The Land of Dreams, I have proposed to host a community basketball tournament to raise funds to implement a mentoring program to assist in the personal growth and career development of youth in Lancaster County and surrounding areas. The program will form partnerships with local school districts and the juvenile court system. This event will aid Lancaster County by providing additional discretionary resources that will be used to fund such activities as tutoring programs, leadership courses, and college tours.