I have learned recently about how nutrition and diet can effect your body. My best friend suffered an eating disorder a year and a half ago. I was the only one that knew she was either not eating or purging herself after eating. I talked to her, pleaded with her and prayed for her. She still kept not eating. We played soccer together, during games she would turn blue and then pass out on the field. Or she would stagger off the field and colapse. Her parents thought it was a blood sugar condition, but all her test came back good. I finally was scared for her life, so I told my parents what I had experienced with her. She wasn't only having black outs on the field, but also in her room at night. I would be talking with her on the phone, and she would black out and come back seconds later. The final straw for me was at a sleep over and she passed out in the middle of all the girls talking. My parents talekd to her parents and finally got her help with the eating disorder. Unforunately, the damage to her body had already happened. She dealt with the heart issue for a year after she corrected her eating. She was able to still play soccer, but she would have many moments duing games where she would need to sub out before she passed out on the field. I started seeing the signs before it happend to get her subbed out. She went to a heart specialist and they gave her some medication that helped her body's circutlation and prevented the black out occurences. She was getting better, finally. Then, one game she took a nasty fall and came up limping in pain. She could barely walk off of the field. Her parents to her to the emergency room. We found out after the game, that she suffered from a broken hip. A piece of her hip bone broke from the rest of her hip. The ligaments were to weak to prevent the break. We were told that her bones were brittle and weak and it was likely do to poor nutrition. Eventhough she had corrected her eating disorder that damage to her bones was enough fo this injury. She had to be in a wheel chair at school and use a cane to walk for several weeks. During her recovery, she attend physical therapy. I would meet her there and we would work out together. I fell in love with the things we were doing. Our therapist also taught us both about proper nutrition and how eating would effect not only our health but our athletic performance. This is how I decided I wanted to study human biology, kinesiology, and nutrition. I want to be a physical therapist that not only helps heal the working body, but also teaches parents of kids, paitents and others about proper diet and nutrition. I want to teach them it is more than just being lean, but also being healthy and living a longer life. And if you are healthy and not sick, your quality of life is much higher.

I have been volunteering with The Moses Basket in my city. It is an organization for new or single mothers or mothers with low income. We collect new and slightly used baby items and formula. My parents divorced when I was a baby, my mom primarily raised me on a low, single income for three years before she met my stepfather. I look up to her and want to help others like her. I help by sorting through the donated items and organize them. Once we sort and organzie, we either make a basket of items for delivery to new moms or we hand out individual items for mothers in need. Some of the new moms come by our location; sometimes we help deliver. I also volunteer at the Food Pantry in a neighboring lower income city. I pick up donations from local grocery stores and drop off locations. I then sort through and organize the donated food items. Once a week we have items boxed up and we meet at a location in the town to hand out boxes to the communtiy. Left over items either get restocked for the next week or are then donated on to the Community Kitchen to use when they make their meals. I have yet to be able to voluneer during one of their events, but hope to in the furture. Our church dontates time and money to The Community Kitchen and Starfish Orphange. I had the opportunity to help at Starfish. I was able to be part of their Christmas event for children. We were given money, a budget and a list to go shopping for kids toys, art supplies, clothes and shoes. Then the toy and art supply items we wrapped in Christmas paper so we could hand them out to the kids at the party. We help a Christmas party for the children. We had food and played games with all the kids. At the end we handed out every gift that we had bought and wrapped to the kids. Seeing their faces light up to recieve the gifts was wonderful, even better when you picked out the best gift for the kid that received it. By far one of my favorite events that our community does. I plan to continue to volunteer in all of my community events for these organizations and others like them. There is nothing more rewarding than putting smiles on people in need's faces. I would like to start something similar at our school for the students. We pack lunches every week for kids to take home over the weekend now, but I would love to add clothes and shoes to some of the items we can give to the students that need them.