The most important thing we can do to make a change is directly getting everyday people educated and involved. I have become President of the Think Green club on my campus to promote sustainability, ethical consumption, and awareness about the environment. Over the summer, I took over an overgrown plot to build a community garden, where our team grew tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, and berries for any students willing to volunteer, giving them access to locally sourced food. This semester we look forward to holding electricity consumption competitions, where with the help of the maintenance crew we will track which dorm uses the least energy and award the winners with a prize. We’ll be holding litter collection competitions, and awarding the winners with national park passes to support our parks as well. And very soon we are starting month long bingo games, where points are awarded for using paper bags over plastic, buying bamboo paper products instead of tree based, carpooling, and other green activities. The best part? We’ve already reached out to neighboring schools and the Missouri Sierra Club to start a citywide movement, where students will gather to lobby the city council for updating building codes and forming more initiatives for green energy. It has truly become a passion of mine, and I’m so excited to start mobilizing my peers to form better habits to make this world a better place. Signing petitions and holding meetings are great, but as the climate crisis grows stronger, we are called to action more than ever, and I want to respond appropriately.

My Grandpa grew up on a dirt floor, one bedroom farm in rural Missouri. Today, I am the first descendant of his to attend college. My family has slowly risen into the middle class since my grandpa left the farm to live in St. Louis where he started our family. His legacy as the one who moved our family from poverty lives in well past his death in 2008. When I was young, he would sit me on his prosthetic knee (which he lost in the Korean War) and try to tell me the key to living a good life. It’s from his lessons I was inspired to go to college, and it was with my family I went the year he died to start my very first savings account at only 7 years old. My Grandpa gave me a crisp 50 dollar bill and told me to make that money work for me. So that’s what I did. At 11 years old I began shoveling driveways with every snow, and then cutting grass every summer. At 14 I got my first job with a permit, and have held at least one job ever since. It’s from my family I’ve learned how interest works, how much tax impacts my paycheck, and how to be a minimalist consumer when the times call for it. Yesterday, I paid for my 5th semester tuition, and I face times when I need to remember what my family taught me, and what my grandpa said. And though I’ve applied for every scholarship I can, I know the value of “every bit”, and I know this scholarship is worth my time, even if it isn’t grand and luxurious. Because I know in the end, I’ll get by, hopefully with a little help.