"I have three different club meetings during lunch today!" is a phrase that's left my mouth more than once. When you're passionate about so many different things, it can be hard to find the time for everything. As someone who's been in well over a dozen different extracurriculars, I can say from personal experience that the impact they have is larger than most people realize. I've been a part school theatre for all four years of high school as an actor, as well as this year becoming president. Over the years I've put on numerous plays and musicals for my school and local community to see and support the arts, while creating a space for new students to express themselves freely. I've also been President of my school's National Arts Honor Society, otherwise known as NAHS, where we've assisted in creating school murals to make sure everyone has access to the arts. Additionally, I've been president of my school's LGBTQ+ club. We worked to create a safe and welcoming environment for everyone at school, no matter who they are, and held pride-related school events to better support LGBTQ+ students and people around the world. I've gained an incredible amount of leadership skills from these positions and it's changed the way I see the world. I've helped clean the forest and the stream with the conservation club, baked brownies with the baking club, and sung Christmas carols with the choir club. These activities aren't just fun places to go goof off with my friends, these are places I learn new skills, do fundraisers, protect the outdoors, and bring a little light to people's days. As the Ambassador of Logistics for the Leaders In Progress Association, partnered with the Chick-fil-A Leader Academy, I was able to help organize a food drive and be a part of the "1 Million Book Giveaway." As Outreach Coordinator for "Our Minds Matter" - an international mental health organization, I planned mental health and student wellness-related school events. Each of these activities has helped me help others, be a part of something larger than myself, and give back to my community. In "Sisters in Success," we helped each other build resumes to ensure our fellow girls weren't being left behind. In the crochet craft club, we made blankets for donation. In National Honor Society (NHS), we provide food to those in need as service. In the program for supporting girls' careers, we learned how to be strong, succeed in our fields, and help other women succeed with us. All of these clubs, and the many others have a real lasting impact on the people in them, and the communities that they support. All of my leadership experience in school has been absolutely wonderful, and I have carried it outside of the classroom. I started my all-female Boy Scout troop as one of two founding members and created a space for now over 20 girls to be a part of scouting. I've also been a Girl Scout and a volunteer staff member at summer camps. Through these activities and many more, I have accumulated nearly 500 community service hours with no sign of stopping in sight. Spending time and effort giving back to my community is something that is incredibly important to me. Extracurriculars and community organizations bring us together, they give people a place to belong and create lasting change within community groups. These activities have given me the wonderful chance to make real change as part of something bigger than myself, and it is something I hope to always carry with me wherever I go.

Have you ever heard of semantic satiation? Semantic satiation is the phenomenon that words and phrases lose meaning over time, they just become meaningless sounds after you've heard something so many times. The quote that means a lot to me was just like that. I'd heard it so many times. Over and over again, it had become a basic response or a poster in a classroom with no meaning. I was getting ready for bed one night about a year ago, I had just finished watching, Disney's "Tangled" with my family. I was thinking about how cool the animation is, and the words that crossed my mind were something like "It's so cool, it would be amazing to be a Disney animator, too bad I can't do that" (I had already known that animation is a very competitive field.) Above my desk I have a pinboard with sticky notes on it of things I want to do and accomplish in life, I call it my dream board. In front of it, I have fairy lights with letter capsules in them so you could put in a short phrase. I had turned off my main light and only had that string of fairy lights left, as I went to turn it off I looked at the phrase, really looked at it for the first time. "Dream Big." It really hit me, "...why not? Why can't I be an animator? Why shouldn't I dream big?" I really thought about it, there was no reason I couldn't. I just had to dream big and imagine it as a possibility. I didn't quite realize it at the time but that quote really did change my life, since then I've been working and learning what I need to do to become an animator. I've been working on my portfolio, finding out what school(s) I want to go to, making animations and so much more! Looking back it's so crazy to think that 2 words I've read hundreds of times before changed my life! I plan to go to Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota Florida after I graduate high school in the computer animation major. I'm working taking art classes, making animations, and more because I'm really passionate about what I want to do now and it's given me so much motivation because those two words "dream big" are the most special quote in the world to me.

I love the fulfillment of creating art. I think one of my favorite things about it is that you can create something out of nothing, even if it doesn't turn out as well as you had hoped, you still created that from a blank canvas and made something. I love how you can never do it wrong, you never have to make art any certain way and you have the freedom to express yourself. One project I'm currently working on is my own stop motion short, where I wrote the script, made my own poseable puppet, and plan to film soon. I've also been preparing to open my Etsy shop and sell artwork I've made. I've loved art and animation since I was little, I remember making my own little flipbooks and drawing on every piece of paper I could find. With animation, you can create life. You can change something from a drawing of a bear to a bear that can now walk, talk, dance, and even sing! I hope to go to Ringling College of Art and Design (RCAD) as a Computer Animation major. My dream is to be an animator and create that life every day for people to enjoy.

I've loved art and animation since I was little, I remember making my own little flipbooks and drawing on every piece of paper I could find. Art is beautiful to me and I think one of my favorite things about it is that you can create something out of nothing, even if it doesn't turn out as well as you had hoped, you still created that from a blank canvas and made something. I love how you can never do it wrong, you never have to make art any certain way and you have the freedom to express yourself, even if you're doing a life study you can always find a way to make it special. With animation, you can create life. You can change something from a drawing of a bear to a bear that can now walk, talk, dance, and sing! That's why I want to be an animator and create that life every day.

I'm proud to be a Bi person, And I'm proud of how far people have come. I'm proud that people can be themselves and have pride in who they are and who they will become. My social media is @Cassa.doodles on Instagram

An ideal community of any sort would be one where people live together peacefully, and everyone is involved in helping one another. When people are involved in their communities, it creates a sense of harmony and society becomes more functional. When people are involved in their communities problems get solved faster. That pothole will get filled quicker, that street will be repaved faster, and that bridge will be fixed in a shorter time when people are involved because they'll actually do something about it. When people are involved in their communities, they care about it and put in more effort to keep it nice. As both a Girl Scout and BSA Scout (formerly known as Boy Scouts), I do volunteer work and service projects regularly in terms of how I've helped my own community. I do activities such as cleaning up trash on the side of roads, cleaning up our nearby lake, cleaning various community areas nearby with my troop, and I am planning to continue doing so in the future. I plan to earn both my eagle award, (BSA) and my gold award (girl scouts) before finishing high school. The eagle and gold award projects consist of creating a positive change in your local community, usually permanent or semi-permanent. Any community functions better when the people in it work together and put in the effort to care about it and each other. That is why it's so important for people to be involved in their communities