1) What does inspiration mean to you? How would you use your platform in your future career in healthcare to inspire and uplift others? What inspiration means to me is seeing someone doing something or setting an example for others that allows them, or myself, to see a way to do something new. Allowing a new journey to begin, as a new spark has been lit, and now creativity and drive are in place for a new goal to be met. Without being inspired by others, many of the things I’ve accomplished might never have happened. An example of this would be the reason behind starting my own cotton candy business at eleven years old. While having a conversation with my cousin about where we would want to work for our first jobs, my godfather gave a piece of wisdom that will forever stick with me, which was, “Why work for someone when you can work for yourself?” That summer, I worked on my business plan, figuring out who my target audience would be, where I would get supplies, and more. Now I can proudly say I’ve been running my business for the last five years, and even inspired my older brother to start his own churro business. I also have another passion, which is to work in healthcare. This passion is inspired by many people—my mother, Doc McStuffins, and more recently, Dr. Andrea Alexander, known as @Paging.dr.dre on Instagram. I have seen my mom educate her students throughout my entire life, and most recently she became a community based doula providing care to women who typically could not afford this resource. Watching Doc McStuffins care for the toys in a loving and educated manner as a young Black girl on TV was inspiring because I saw a character who looked like me doing something that I want to do, which is care for others. Most recently, I’ve been inspired by @Paging.dr.dre on Instagram a young Black female OB-GYN who uses her platform not only to share day-in-the-life content, fashion tips, and a little humor, but most importantly to educate others about women’s health in a way that is engaging and accessible. I would use my platform in my future career in healthcare not only to inspire the healthcare community to do more research and studies on how certain diseases appear in African Americans but also to work toward changing the narrative that African Americans do not experience pain as much as Caucasians. This would help promote equality in treatment in a country where minorities are often overlooked or ignored when it comes to their symptoms due to a lack of understanding or empathy. Additionally, I would use my platform in a similar way as @Paging.dr.dre by explaining and breaking down disease processes, symptoms, tests, and medications into simpler terms to provide more understanding to patients. Helping to educate which in turn would ease any fear related to medical care, which leads to disparities in minority communities. 2) What intentional actions are you currently taking to inspire people around you? Starting my business was an intentional action that I took first to provide something that did not contain harmful chemicals and harsh dyes such as Red Dye 40. I spent my entire summer researching organic, sustainable ingredients. I also made sure my products were affordable to my community as a way to show that we deserve nice things at a reasonable price. It also teaches that we can do so much as a community by supporting one another. It is not just about buying and booking my services but about uplifting each other’s businesses, sharing resources, and celebrating our talents together. Another intentional action that I took at the start of my freshman year was joining the Associated Student Body and Student Council and becoming the class president. I have now taken on the role of ASB President for my upcoming senior year. My goal has always been to be the voice for my class and now the entire school, to bring a fun environment or simply address things we would like to see changed in a system that is not up to date or accepting at times. One of the first things I helped change was allowing us as students to wear our necklaces and chains out. With the demographic of the school mostly being African American students, many of us have nameplates or chains, which are very important within African American culture as a way of expressing ourselves. During a meeting with administration, I, along with other leadership members, explained why we should be able to wear our necklaces and chains. I explained in the meeting that nameplates were a beautiful protest, in which many African Americans were unable to find our names on amusement park displays or souvenir shops while on vacation. As a solution, we began making nameplates with our unique names. This resulted in my private Catholic traditional school revising the policy and meeting us in the middle by allowing students to now wear customized jewelry. This inspired the school to speak up more often and share any concerns to get change within our school. 3) If granted the scholarship, describe how you would utilize the award to propel yourself towards your goals and continue serving as a source of inspiration to others. If granted the scholarship, I would use this money towards my educational needs such as college application fees, tuition, books, and any additional software that I may need. I would also be diligent and purposeful about how this money is spent, as it will be of great help to my family, having two other children in college at the same time, as a way to help my parents and minimize additional stress. This would also allow me time to volunteer in community spaces with minority children to inspire them to go further in their education and help propel them towards college goals by providing them with resources and helping them move to the next step. This would allow young students to see that with hard work, support, and belief in themselves, college is possible no matter their background.