Volunteering is an act of service that benefits everyone. Being able to humble yourself and understand that helping others means a lot to them with little effort needed to accomplish that. Not only does volunteering help put you out of your comfort zone when you start, but watching the changes you can make is an experience that can only be explained when you witness it. Sometimes a little extra effort on your part can be a huge change in someone else's day! I have been volunteering for the past 8 years as it was required by my high school, but I always did more hours and continued after high school. I think seeing the way your effort helps others changes the way you think. You start wanting to volunteer and wanting to help for certain causes you feel passionate about, but I don't think volunteering has to be always formal. I tend to think about volunteering as a service in everything that I do. I love to serve my coworkers, my bosses, colleagues, and customers. Being joyful is one way I do this. Staying level-headed and joyful has made a tremendous change to my working environment. Being able to serve others with this is not hard to do, but can give comfort and feelings of thoughtfulness to others. Whether it's holding a door open, carrying stuff for someone, or even a smile, volunteering, or serving others, can benefit others. No matter how this scholarship winner goes, I will continue to serve others by helping with different medical foundations, TA hours, and local service to neighbours. Most of all I thoroughly enjoy serving my home church. I help out with youth groups, worship, choir, and special music. I love spreading God's word and sharing the good news with the youth and being able to serve others in different manners. I have always mapped out volunteering instead of getting hours in for work. This means I am not getting as full a paycheck as I could. With rising tuition and family issues I am paying my way through my undergraduate degree and need financial help. Getting this scholarship would fill in the financial gap between volunteering time and work. Thank you for taking the time to read through my application and I will be praying for God's hand in this decision and for your choice to be clear whoever it may be!

Something that has always been frightening to me was financial management systems. Being able to handle your finances responsibly and being dedicated to that still was intriguing though. As a student, being able to manage my finances right now is so important for my future. Assuming I make more money as an adult, I will be able to use my knowledge from a poor college student to better my understanding and keep a grounded mindset. As a student, I have to pay my tuition bills, I pay for my college, and other expenses like gas, food, etc. Forgetting how much money you make vs. how much you can spend is what leads many college students to get into credit card debt or gives them the inability to pay off their student loans. I knew from the beginning that I was not going to take out student loans until necessary. Going forward to medical school, I assumed loans were going to be in my future, so maximizing the time without them would be handy. I am now a junior in my undergraduate program with zero debt and a smile on my face. Being able to manage my finances at this hard time in my life will lay down the foundation for moving forward into the workforce. For me, I manage my finances all in my head first, then on paper. First, when it comes to my costs, I think about how much I am spending, if I need the product, when I will make the money back, and other alternative products I could be using. This method has always been useful for me to not make unnecessary purchases, but also not overspend. Also, I am disciplined in my bank accounts, which helps me to manage my finances well. Being disciplined in your bank accounts means only taking money from a certain area for a specific purpose. I am not going to take money out of my medical school savings for a cheeseburger or money out of my savings for school supplies. I found it easier to give myself a budget in my different bank account divisions to be super helpful with being able to manage finances well. Currently, as I am not perfect, I am working on how to manage my credit card well financially, as I have only had it for 2 months. My plan to manage this well is to use it strictly as a debit card and only spend money that I can find in the appropriate debit accounts. This has started to work to build me credit and I cannot wait to see where these tricks bring me in the future!

God has given us one Earth filled with finite resources. We use these resources and then throw our waste wherever we want which not only uses up space and resources but also ruins areas of our precious globe. I want to get one thing straight, I believe in global warming and I believe in impacting our environment for a better quality of life for everything, but I do not believe that these reasons will be the Earth's demise. God, through a revelation to John, told us how the world was going to end and that is where my faith is. With that being said, who wants to breathe in factory smoke, step on plastic waste, or watch organisms suffer due to carelessness? I hope you would not want to experience any of that. In reality, this is our life and we need to better our choices to help stop the spread of carelessness and laziness. There are a few daily choices that I make to impact the environment. First, I use reusable everything when able. From boxes to glassware, I have a lot of random units that I have been given that have more than the purpose that originally was used for. Instead of buying plastic water bottles, I fill up my mason jars at a spring. Instead of buying plastic bags, I use reusable ones, with the help of NYS this was an easy change for everyone! My main concern is where will my waste go. If I can use reusable resources then I know that they will not end up in a wasteland, or on the ground somewhere. This also ties into living sustainably, but one thing that I do is shop locally. Being sustainable by yourself is doable, but as a community is where you can see how sustainability works. I live in a little village in upstate New York where if you need fresh vegetables from the farm, you go to the farm. If you need cleaning supplies you go to Janet down the road. We all help out each other, which not only shows the service we show each other, but also the sustainability we have in a hard-working community. People will say, "How will using a glass jar help fix our situation". To that, I always say, if everyone starts to switch to glass or reuse their resources then those little choices create large-long lasting impacts. Be intentional with your choices and make this world a better place with a better quality of life for all organisms.

I live in a small village in upstate New York where everything is local, we help each other out, and the nearest Mcdonald's is a half hour away! From an early age, I was brought up knowing to serve others. I now understand that service not only is necessary for people in a work environment but is commanded of us as well. Matthew 20:28 in The Holy Bible states, "even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve..." and Galatians 5:13 states, "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." Jesus is the only one who did no evil, is the King of Kings, yet still was a servant in his life here on Earth. We, who are not perfect, must strive to be like this. In my life, I started getting involved with my community because my high school required community service hours. I did not see this as a positive thing at the time, but I did all 40 hours and towards the end fell in love with it. These 40 hours of signed-off community service helped me to want to help out more. From this, it was a weekly act of service, from helping shovel or giving rides home from drama club, or youth group. To start getting involved with my local church by leading worship, helping with the choir, and leading jr high and senior high youth groups. All of my involvement with my community started from one little high school requiring community service to graduate. I have realized that something as simple as holding the door open for people helps others out. These little things start to add up and by the time you know it others start showing you how much they appreciate you. This chain of service starts and it is contagious! Leaders starting involvement leads to others starting. This is how I have worked to influence change in my community. I was not on the community board or education board, but rather I wanted to serve others in my community to spread kindness and show others the love that Jesus has for them by using me. I want others to know that we are all commanded to serve and helping others is a great way to start a tight-knit community!

It is 2020 and we are on the road to spring practice to be ready for travel soccer championships. For the past month, my team and I have been through the wringer to be at the peak of our abilities for the travel season. My friends and I have one last spring season, as we will be graduating in June. March comes and we are told we have a practice on the first Monday after the break. Break then got extended and the rest of the story we all lived through. This heartbreaking experience led me to want to give up; never try again. Through the first section of quarantine, this was my mindset. I forgot everything that my coaches told us, that we are meant for more. At some point, this kicked back into my mind and I remembered that I am not meant to be depressed in my room and give up on everything, because of this one experience. Athletics in my life is more than a practice or a championship game. Athletics has impacted my life in long-lasting and meaningful ways. My coaches were able to teach me how to grow and how to help others as a team. Coming into my first year of college this information was crucial. Being able to relate and strive for me was just as important to me as pushing and challenging others to be where God needs them to be. Coming into my undergraduate school I have not been active on a sports team due to my demanding major, but the athletics program still encourages me to strive for more and to be more in a way that is meaningful to God, my peers, and to my teachers/school staff. In this same manner, I encourage athletics by supporting events and helping out whenever I can. Athletics is more than just the athletes in a sport. Athletics is the combination of every helper or contributor, from ball boy to food staff, that shows the community of the same idea. It is crazy how unified we are when it comes to sports. Whether your sports team loses or wins, I bet no matter what you will be just as encouraged to support at the start of the next season! The way athletics has affected my life hasn't always been positively, but even in the bad God works to push us in a manner that is glorifying to Him.

It was 2020 and my drama group is getting ready for our production of "Newsies". It was my senior show and I was the main character. We were told of an "extended spring break" which sounded like an amazing break. Little did I know that break was caused by COVID-19 and was the start of the end of my senior production. Everyone has a story, but mine has always been around some sort of music. My family had unique experiences while I was growing up, but never was music taken from me. "Words Fail" by Ben Platt is a piece of music that is important to me. The story before this piece is at the climax when Ben Platt's character performs this song. The emotion pushing through and the surrounding context creates an emotional bubble that is hard to escape from. My experiences with my show can be compared to "Words Fail". Disappointment, envy, anger, and bitterness were all emotions that I was feeling, similar to "Words Fail". Where there are negative emotions, though, there is room for growth. Like Ben Platt's character who kept going even after this seemingly awful time in his life, he realized that being honest and open was better for everyone in the long run; that lying and being manipulative was not the way we should be treating others. With my disappointment, envy, anger, and bitterness I realized I needed someplace to grow to not be in the place that I was. I grew past that event by forgiving the situation and understanding that the world was not out to get me. I grew to a spot that I would eventually know as the place I am today. This is the importance of creative arts. This is only but a piece of my story, but so many people have a story similar to this! Being able to understand that creative arts, in my case music, was a way of understanding that I am not alone and that others have gone through the same situations that I am. Similar to looking at the emotion in a painting, we can cognitively understand the perceived emotion in creative arts which has helped me when I was not in a good place. Growing in your creative arts mind helps you to become a better person and a healthier person by understanding not only others' emotions, but your own as well.