Dogs to me aren't just pets, they are apart of my family. I love dogs because no matter what they are loyal and true to you. Ever since I can remember I have had a dog in my home, sometimes 4-5 at a time. My dad especially is a huge animal lover. Any animals sick, hurt, or that needs a family, that comes across his path comes into my home. We currently have 5 dogs, all rescues. Our oldest boy, Logan, was rescued from a shelter at 10 years old. His owner surrendered him, he had half a tail, and nobody wanted an old dog. My dad and I had been passing by the shelter when we decided to stop in. His eyes were so sad and defeated and that's when we knew we had to take him home and give him the best life possible. He is now 14 and living his best life. Our oldest gal is 10 years old. She is a Cane Corso and was used as a breeder. She lived outside in the mud, and was forced to have at least 8-9 different litters of puppies. She now lives her best life sleeping most of the day on her own couch. Those are just two of their stories and we can't even be sure as to the extent of what these poor souls went through. I love dogs because even though they went through terrible situations they are always so grateful to be given another chance and become your best friend. Dogs have positively impacted my life because they are always there. Whenever I am sad or anxious, they just come over and want to sit on my lap and make it all better. Dogs provide me with a sense of emotional wellbeing. When I went through my knee surgeries and could not leave my bed for almost two months, they would just sit with me all day long, so I wan't alone. Not being able to be your normal self and being bed-bound is difficult both physically and mentally, but having my dogs by my side made it so much easier. They are always happy and always there to comfort me. Besides being there when I am injured or sick, my dogs give me a purpose outside of getting my education and going to work. They can not take care of themselves and so they have taught me how to be caring, loving, and responsible. On days where I just want to stay in bed all day, I can't because they rely on me to be there for them. They have given me a daily routine, that makes my life feel so much more fulfilling. My dogs are always there when I need them and I will always continue to be there for them. Dogs add so much joy to my life and I love being able to adopt and give a life to dogs that otherwise would be in a shelter or be euthanized. I do believe that every dog is deserving of a second chance and for as long as I live I will always rescue them. Without my dogs I'm not sure what my purpose would be. They bring so much light to my life that I'm not sure who I would be without them!

Alexis's "Mental Health Tips" For me in undergraduate college right now, and hoping one day to pursue medical school and beyond, there is a lot of stress and anxiety behind going down this career path. There are the stresses of school itself, the stresses of failing, and just your everyday stressors/anxiety that everybody runs into here and there. My favorite activity to do to clear my mind has to be weightlifting. Back a few years ago I loved to play sports and was active 7 days a week, playing club and competitive soccer and basketball. Following a couple of knee surgeries I can no longer compete, but my body is always driving to want to stay active. After a long day of school, work or studying, I love to throw on some gym clothes and hit the gym. It is so nice to be able to put on your favorite tunes, and just be able to take all your stress and anger out on some weights. It is also nice because it keeps you physically in shape, and also helps to make you tired so you can get a good nights rest. Another activity that I like to do to clear my mind is volunteering. There are always events available on dosomething.org to help your local community. When it is nice outside you can join one of the "Bag it Days" and go around picking up some trash around town. It is always nice to get some fresh air, stay active, and you can even throw some headphones on and listen to a podcast or some music while helping out. I love doing these events because I am not the type of person to want to sit still. I love to always be on the move and doing something helps keep me motivated and calm. One last activity I want to share is one I got from watching Grey's Anatomy. If anybody knows Christina and Meredith, they will know where I am going with this one. "When in doubt dance it out" is a quote that I love. When you are overwhelmed or stressed just dance. Turn on the radio or put on some Spotify and just dance like nobody is watching. This helps to relax your mind and body, while also doing something fun. You can do this at home by yourself or even with some friends. There are so many different tips or resources to help clear your mind. I enjoy staying active, but sometimes it is nice to even take a quick power nap in order to get back on track. Music is one of the biggest components to all of my mental health tips. Music keeps my mind happy. It is so important to always keep your mind happy and to try to keep your mental health on the upside. Sometimes especially in college this can be a challenge, but by using different resources it is much easier to accomplish.

Mental health is a topic of great importance to me and impacts my life in many ways. A couple of years ago in November 2020, I was driving to go see one of my friends who moved away from my childhood town, when I unfortunately got into a major car accident. This car accident left me physically in pain with a ton of injuries, but also mentally traumatized. Following the accident, I refused to get into or drive any sort of vehicle for over two months, I had recurring nightmares, and I couldn't focus on anything besides the accident. This was the scariest moment of my life and I was ultimately very close to losing it. After seeing a few specialists and doctors I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Living with PTSD was and still is a challenge. A year and a half later, mentally I am better than I was when the accident first happened, but I am still working through the mental barriers. Today, I will get into a car as a passenger, as well as drive the car myself (as long as the distance in under an hour), but I still struggle to drive when it is dark outside, still have some nightmares here and there, and get really anxious the entire time I am in the car. The biggest factor in my mental recovery from this incident is my support system. My friends and family are and have been so considerate and supportive of me through this experience. I believe that having this support system is such an important aspect for anybody suffering from a mental disorder/illness or having a hard time with their mental health. A lot of people joke about mental disorders and use them when trying to say something in a funny way, but there is nothing funny about them. The extent and the severity of a mental health disorder can take over somebody's entire life. Before getting into the accident, I did not know too much about mental disorders that could impact mental health. I wasn't aware of all the effects of having a disorder because they are not talked about enough. When somebody has a physical injury most of the time it is something visual that can be seen, but with a mental disorder or something impacting ones mental health it is something internal so a lot of the time it is overlooked. From my experience with the car accident, alongside almost losing my best friend to a suicide attempt a little over a year ago, due to her mental health deteriorating, I have spent countless hours researching and learning. I've learned that many people (including myself at one point), are not educated in mental health and that we as people and a community need to provide more ways and resources to educate others on how important mental health really is. With giving people more resources, more people will want to be educated and learn to understand the symptoms and science behind mental health. It will drive more communication to the topic and allow the whole world to understand more. With more people understanding mental health, the more support there will be and the people suffering will feel less alone, hopefully lessening and one day ending the amount of suicides and deaths mental health cause. From my research and through my learning, I want to continue to help people facing mental illnesses. Right now, I am looking to either go into medical school to help in the psychiatry field, or go to the psychology route and help athletes or children facing mental challenges. I now understand what a near death experience is and I want to be able to help people heal and realize that you can recover from a scary experience. I believe in the saying that, "Everything happens for a reason" and I do believe that these experiences have pushed my drive to want to help people even further. I want to being more awareness to mental health and I want help people suffering while doing this.

There are many different things that I do in order to have a positive impact on the climate. I live on what I like to call a mini farm, where we do a lot of different tasks to positively impact the climate and the planet. For one, my family and I grow a lot of our own fruits and vegetables to try to reduce our carbon footprint. We also have a bunch of animals. We raise chickens and give away their eggs locally. We have horses and we use their manure to fertilize and promote grass and tree growth. We also have pigs that will eat anything. We always have little to no waste because they eat what ever we do not. In my spare time, I also volunteer with different organizations, such as "dosomething.org" to try and help the environment. In 2021 I helped to pick up thousands of cigarette butts around my local community and surrounding areas to help make the planet a cleaner place. I have also participated in many "Bag it Days" locally where you spend the day picking up trash around the community. It is so important to do what you can to have a positive impact on the climate. Without helping to try to better what is going on right now, climate change will only continue to get worse. The worse it gets, the more problems that will arise. For me, I will continue to do anything possible to generate a positive impact on the climate.

One of the biggest problems facing the world right now that not many people realize or talk about is climate change. The ocean levels are rising and becoming warmer, different species on Earth, including the arctic polar bear are at risk for extinction, and crop supply/amount of fresh water available are slowly becoming more scarce. In order to try and work on this problem, we need the people to understand how detrimental the effects of climate change could be. The first step in addressing these issues would be to get the information out on social media platforms, television, news channels, etc. The more people who see the problem, the less people can ignore it or pretend like it is not happening. One way to try to help the problem at hand would be to try and limit one of the biggest contributing factors. The amount of carbon emissions in the atmosphere have to be reduced. For one, everyday people can simply reduce their carbon footprint by only buying local fruits and vegetables based on the season, supporting their local farms, instead of buying strawberries in the winter. Another way to help would be limiting the amount of beef you intake. Instead of eating beef three times a week, only eat it twice. These few examples seem like they are small and wouldn't generate such a great impact, however if everybody on the planet contributed, the effects would surely be seen. Everybody can do something simple to contribute to helping stop climate change. You do not need to go buy a brand new Tesla or install solar panels to help. If Everybody contributed a little bit, climate change could decrease greatly and stop being the worlds largest problem.

My grandfather is a man who loved to save money. Unfortunately back in 2016 he had a massive heart attack following an open heart surgery and passed away. Growing up, I would go to my grandfathers small one bedroom apartment where he lived and just sit and talk to him once a week with my father. He had enough money to own a house or somewhere bigger/better, but he chose to save his money. I always used to ask him why he didn't use his money to make a better environment for himself and he would always say, "money does not create happiness, family does." He told me that he would save his money in order to give my brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. more. He would save his money so that we could all go on family vacation in the summer. He would rather see the smiles on our faces running around the beach, than for him to live in a million dollar home alone. My grandfather taught me to save money for what makes me happy, not for what others see. Nobody knew he had the money to live and have a nicer life for himself, but rather decided to save it to see the smiles on his families face. People saw him as an older man, sitting in a typical one bedroom apartment, but they didn't know how much money he really had. Money can buy materialistic items, but at the end of the day it can't buy true happiness of family. I will always save my money for something that is meaningful to me, regardless of what others think.

Passions and goals are what keep each and every person on a different path within life. Growing up my favorite activities to participate in were soccer and basketball. I would spend hours training on my own, training with coaches and peers, as well as a lot of time helping out younger athletes. My dream was to one day become a professional athlete. Unfortunately, in 2017 I was playing soccer when another player took my right leg out from under me. A hospital visit later, I learned that I had torn my ACL and both sides of my meniscus. It was a devastating time for me, as I was just entering high school. But I knew that if I wanted to get back out there again, I had to focus and work hard to become strong again. 1.5 years later I finally got back out there. But that was all cut short when the same leg was taken out during a basketball game and I had to have another ACL surgery. But my faith and belief in the idea that "Everything happens for a reason," is what kept me optimistic. Following my second surgery, I learned how to be patient. I learned that life is not easy and sometimes things are just not meant to be. These surgeries and set backs have only made me stronger mentally and I hope to use these traits one day in the biology or psychology field to help other athletes who might be struggling with the same pain, of losing their "whole world." By no longer being able to pursue the dream I initially wanted to, I might be able to help athletes pace themselves and train safely so they hopefully don't have to endure what I had to!