My 8th grade year was 100% on Zoom. During the algebra one class I took, I chose to play games on my computer or read a book rather than learn. But, I still earned an A in the course - but I knew that I would have to work harder the next year during my in-person freshman year of high school in geometry. Going from virtual to in-person learning, I would not have friends in my high school. And finding a community at my arts-program high school was plaguing my 14-year-old self. If I didn’t participate in musical theater, creative writing, or choir how would I find my people? The answer was simpler, and nothing like what I thought - mathematics. Throughout elementary and middle school, I had always enjoyed math for how uncomplicated it was. Unlike history or english, math always has a definitive answer and a reason for that answer. If I did not answer a question correctly, it was not because I did not go in-depth enough or my grammar. Being incorrect in math was easily fixable with practice. This is what I wanted in a high school friend group. And I found those people in my math honor society in high school. Every morning we would meet up in a math classroom to tutor students in algebra, geometry, statistics, and calculus. It was mornings like these where I found my friends - spending hours pouring over our math homework together and hours helping peers understand the math that we enjoyed. After a whole year of tutoring almost every morning, I am proud to say that I completed the most hours of my honor society - over 50 hours! I found my community in high school in our love of mathematics. The uncomplicatedness of math had brought us together in an uncomplicated friendship that could withstand anything with a bit of practice - just like math does.

The scariest day of my life: 2021. A Monday night - before dinner, after virtual school. My parents sat my brother and I down at our kitchen table to tell us that my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. My brother sat there with a blank stare. I cried. I already knew. I had a feeling that something was wrong, my parents were whispering in their room and stopping the conversation after I entered the room. As a 14-year-old kid would do, I went snooping in my mom’s office; and I found paperwork from a mammogram on my mom’s desk. But that did not change what I felt at that moment. It became real, that my mom had cancer. MY mom. My whole life was collapsing in on itself in a single moment. I was hearing my dad tell me “they caught it early” and “it’s nothing to worry about,” but that did not stop my head from spiraling through the possibilities - what if she dies? Questions like that are one that no newly-14-year-old should be asking herself. And yet, I found myself lying awake at night. I found myself unable to sleep through a full night - until my life changed for the second time; when my parents told me that my mom was in remission and cancer free. That moment of relief that I felt is something that I have been chasing for others ever since, and one that I hope to continue. In October 2023, I planned the first annual Swim Against Breast Cancer. I found my brain burdened with this idea in early September, and I knew that I could not rest until this event was carried out. So I got to work. I immediately emailed my local community pool, asking for lane space on any possible weekend in October. I asked for donations from a local shirt-making shop for pink completion shirts. I reached out to everyone I know, hoping that they could donate and swim at the event. I solicited local grocery stores for food and water donations, to feed every volunteer and swimmers and donator who contributed to this dream. And come the middle of October, this dream had become a reality. I chose to send all of our $1,700.00 donations to the Virginia Breast Cancer Foundation, where they work at a local level funding breast cancer research and treatments for women in-need of help. In turn, they sent us resource materials like How-To Guides for a self-breast exam that we could spread around our community to help women find breast cancer before it became too late. They sent us resource materials like treatment organizations and funds to help women get help once diagnosed. It is these resources that reminded me of WHY my mom is still here - she had access to mammograms and excellent treatment. And I want that access for others, so that no one has to lose someone they love. In my future, I plan to continue this philanthropy. Swim Against Breast Cancer will continue in 2024 and beyond. I hope to double-major in public policy and public health, a cross-section where I can continue helping others get medical treatment through legislation. My dream is that no one else ever has to repeat the scariest day of my life. And this is a dream that I will work effortlessly to achieve.

I was born in Woodbridge, Virginia to two Virginia transplants who moved here to work for the government. My dad was born in western Maine, son of a former navy IT worker father and volunteer firefighter and a nurse/librarian mother. My mom was born in suburban Connecticut, daughter of a former air force police officer father who ran his own lawn-mowing business and a stay-at-home mom. This is where my story starts: parents who instilled their own parents’ values into their children.The most prevalent trait that my parents have given me is the importance of public service. Volunteering to be my Girl Scout Troop leader so I can be in Girl Scouts? An easy yes. Chaperoning my field trips? Absolutely. Judging my debate competitions so we can bring as many kids as possible? Without hesitation. I cannot imagine my life without my parents volunteering for the things that I’m part of - it’s what has made me do the same. I earned my Girl Scout Silver Trefoil and Gold Awards, completing over 200 hours of service at a variety of events covering topics such as energy conservation, outdoor learning, and menstrual health education. I am the vice president of my school’s debate team and Young Democrats chapter, captain of Congressional Debate, treasurer for Model UN, website and social media chair for the National Social Studies honor society, and am in the process of starting a Taylor Swift club. I have coached on my summer swim team for over three years, and have run the program that connects older and younger swimmers, the Breaker Buddies, for two. I do all of this because this is how I’ve been raised; my parents and grandparents have instilled that into my DNA. I decided to run for Parent Teacher Student Organization (PTSO) student representative two years ago because I realized that, as a student, I could impact my high school’s whole community. Since then I have assisted in planning a school dance and prepared a menstruation product collection drive for our school nurse’s office. My job is connecting with over 6,000 students and parents who care deeply about this school, and I love it. During the 2023 election cycle in Virgina, I volunteered to work as an election page for Prince William County. I worked from five in the morning to one in the afternoon greeting voters, handing out stickers, and learning about elections. During this eight-hour shift, I learned more about elections than any school has ever taught me. I learned about provisional ballots, forms of voter ID, election technology, cases of past voter fraud, and so much more. My background, from genetics to Girl Scouts to volunteering, has only made me realize how much I love helping my community. I plan to positively impact my community by continuing what I am already doing in my community, and improving through higher education. I hope to one day become a Congresswoman and help my community at the federal level by introducing legislation that improves the lives of my constituents. I want to continue projects that I have started as a teenager, like my Girl Scout Girl Award, which focused on educating swimmers about periods and how to manage them. I want to continue building outdoor classrooms around the DMV area for students to learn and connect in nature. I want to continue organizing programs for swimmers to mentor younger swimmers throughout their swimming career. I plan to positively impact my community by continuing these things.

The lyric, "'Cause baby I could build a castle out of all the bricks you threw at me" in New Romantics describes my friendships. This is why New Romantics has always been my favorite song on the Taylor Swift album 1989 - because it describes a feeling that I know all too well. I have always had bad luck when it comes to friends, but recently it has gotten to the point where I feel like I am always being thrown bricks. The earliest memory I have of being beaten down is on the elementary school playground, where I had never felt accepted by the other kids. I always felt that I was just another person there, with no real connections to anyone else. That I was just an annoying girl that bothered them, not someone they enjoyed being around. I felt left out of the groups, and that I was intruding on other people's happiness by just being there. To this day, I am still being beaten down by this feeling of no one ever wanting to be my friend. Last summer, my summer swim friend group started doing activities without me. They planned a mall trip, and I only found out because they mistakenly texted about in it the group chat that I was in. I was devasted, I only had a small number of friends and couldn't understand why these girls had started to dislike me so much. At our end-of-season awards ceremony a month later, the girls had gotten a photo together - it wasn't until I saw the 2022 picture and the 2021 picture posted on social media side by side, that I noticed one difference between them. I was missing from that year's photo. But it was the end of the season, and I was going back to school. Recently, I got hired as a coach for my summer swim, and all my friends did as well! But when we had our open house for the swimmers, I thought that everything was going well because everyone was being friendly. I thought that maybe we could put it behind us and things would be different this summer, that I would be included. Spoiler - I was wrong. I check my social media the next day to find a picture of all the coaches at the open house, but not me. I have felt so beaten down by this - these girls that I have known for almost a decade were excluding me, again. This is why New Romantics is my favorite song on the 1989 album. Because this song has described my friendships since it was released in 2014. I feel constantly beaten down by others when they exclude me from activities, but I have been taking these feelings and turning them into something positive. I've decided that I will be taking these bricks and turning them into a castle. This summer, instead of being mad about something that I cannot control - I will use this energy and become the best person I can be. I will put my effort into my coaching job, the physics and Spanish 4 classes that I will be taking, exercising, reading, and more. Instead of focusing on the bricks being thrown at me - I will focus on building a castle out of them.