Domenic DePasquale, Grade 12, Big Heart Scholarship Essay Please share how you've helped others and made choices from your heart to create a safer and more inclusive atmosphere for yourself and your peers. Helping others is apparent in my day-to-day life due to my different high school jobs. Since the Spring of my sophomore year, I have been an umpire for Little League Baseball and worked at Dunkin since the fall of 2021. Both of these jobs are heavily customer service based. The baseball game I am assigned is primarily the younger kid pitch age group, 9-10 year-olds. This age is a massive step in the development of players learning to pitch and hit a baseball. My job requires me to pause the game to correct players on their mechanics and teach them the proper motion. I must help players learn the correct form to perform at a higher level and ensure the kids do not injure themselves with potentially harmful shoulder, elbow, and wrist movements when throwing a baseball. I would be disappointed if a player injured himself when it was preventable, from my perspective. Additionally, my job as a crew member at Dunkin is to be a "Day Maker." That is the slogan the company inputs on most of its training videos. They want me, the crew member, to be a day maker to our customers through excellent customer service, correctly providing their orders, and answering any questions they may have. Helping my coworkers is also huge for shift success and making the customer's day. Ways that I work to make a more inclusive environment at my school range from the clubs I am a part of and participating in spirit days. During high school, I was a member of the clubs: Deca, Interact Club, National Honors Society, Principles Advisory Council of Students, and Teen Leadership Corps Bold Event. Although DECA is a business and marketing club, as a club, we donated over $1200 to 3 local charities: Pajama Pals, Ronald McDonald House of Pittsburgh, and Adopt-a-Family. Our school store, The Bean & Berry, was the primary source of fundraising for these charities. I was the Vice President of The Bean & Berry this year and worked at it every single school day. The Interact Clubs' purpose was to improve the community through activities such as raising money for childhood cancer (Smiles for Sean) or the sensory movie night, intended for those with special needs to have a fun night with high school students. The other clubs I was involved in also were designed for students to be a part of an organization that brought members of the community or school closer together. The goal for spirit days was to get the students in the school closer together. These are short examples of how I try to help others in whatever I may be involved and how my heart influences decisions.