Granada Hills Charter Highlander of the Year Scholarship

Being a part of the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement (VEYM) has provided many opportunities for me to give back to my community. It allowed me to aid those in need and improve the overall state of my community in small increments. One of the most touching events in my life was when I headed to Downtown L.A. and helped out the homeless. The streets were littered with tents and trash. To think that people can live in these conditions blew my mind. We gave out food to them early in the morning. They all flocked towards us, desperately in need of sustenance. When we gave them supplies, their smiles were so vibrant. I had a few conversations with some of the residents and learned about the perpetual struggles of poverty. I was so touched by it. For the first time in my life, I was able to help those in need. This made me realize that I had the power to change my community for the better. A few months later, my organization and I planned a fundraising event for Thanksgiving. The plan was to gather canned goods and send them off to a charity/food bank where they will give them to the homeless. A lot of time and research went into this. Everyone chipped in some food and we found the right charity. By the end of the fundraising event, we were able to allocate over 150 canned foods and 200 water bottles to the homeless! It was an amazing feeling to know that they will be able to have dinner on Thanksgiving! It puts me at ease to know that they won’t go hungry. Thanks to VEYM, I was finally able to help out my community. My contributions provided significant aid for the homeless for a few days. These aren’t enormous steps, but I hope to give back little by little. My efforts won’t stop here. I want to continue my endeavor in aiding those in need. My plans in the future are to continue my efforts to help out not only those in need but to give back to those who have helped me throughout my high school career. I am currently setting up a website called "Laconic" which is a project that a friend and I created in order to teach other people fun skills to keep them entertained during this rough quarantine. I feel like the mini-tutorials on the website will ignite joy so that others can share talents of their own. Since everyone is at home, I want to start streaming videogames to make extra money. I intend to donate that money to charity. I want to follow in my father's footsteps because he is an avid donator to charity and it warms my heart seeing the thank you letters from the charities. I know that every bit helps them so I want to do my part in aiding them. I want to give back to my school as well. In the near future, I hope to organize a project that aims to clean up the school. The school janitors work extremely hard so and want to alleviate them from their work and clean for them. Fundraisers are something that loomed my mind for a while. I could set up fundraisers and use the money raised to improve not only the state of my high school, but for my community as well. Since the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement have been such an integral part of my life, I also want to give back to them. I am really close to becoming the highest rank in the organization. This high rank gives me the ability to teach other people. I hope that I can pass down the values that were taught to me to the newer generation. Donating to the organization will keep it running for many years to come which will bring me much joy. Giving back to my community is an experience like no other. It feels so good to show others your appreciation. My plans to give back are extensive and long. It will be hard to bring those ideas into fruition but I will persevere and turn those plans into reality!