In my time, mainly as a person in high school, I have worked with quite a few organizations, the most notable of which include Wayne Rotary, and Fleece and Thank You, as well as an Interact club hosted at my school, which was centered around making a difference in the community, and helping with things like food pantries, or older veterans. I have found it very fun to meet new people and find new hobbies, while also making others happy, which I think is the most valuable aspect of volunteer work: everyone wins. I've had a lot of fun working with these organizations, such as the Wayne Rotary club, which I've helped clean up parks, school grounds, parking lots, and other places that had trash and grime littered throughout them. I met a lot of older people, who told me stories about their time in Wayne, and memories they have from the place we would be tidying up. Helping at Fleece and Thank You has also been a lot of fun, as even though I only ever work in one place, the warehouse they're based in, there is still quite a few things to do, from checking blankets for mistakes, to tossing the blankets into the delivery truck, to actually bringing blankets home and sewing them with guidance from the blanket making class they offer. Also, since they give these blankets to mainly children that need them, it's genuinely helping my community, rather than helping at a corporate shop, or a chain restaurant. Finally, at my school's Interact club, we've made sandwiches for shelters to serve to others, we've created cards for people who have served in our military, and overall, it feels very hands-on. I've always loved how positive of an atmosphere that club fostered, it was one where all of us felt we were contributing to a bigger cause, and we all were helping. Volunteer work is important for the world, as you can't pay everyone for everything, and not everyone can do things for themselves. I want to help others by creating a safe space for people as a counselor, and as far as volunteering, I can use my leadership skills to even push some efforts to provide for the people. (wherever I am in the future.)

I've had a lot of family from different stages of financial stability, such as my papa (grandpa) who owns over an acre of land, and a fairly large house near the front of it, or my mother, who I live with, and is constantly bouncing in and out of a deficit, usually due to some kind of emergency like the van breaking down. I don't necessarily blame her for our low money, as she has been put on disability for a while now, and isn't generally allowed to hold a job, though she would like to. I do, however, know that a lot of her financial experience was self taught when she was young, and she would do her dad's taxes and budgets and such, which means I don't always know whether to put my faith in what she says about money. I have learned a lot through the college preparation and readiness program, Upward Bound, as we've had many units explaining financial literacy, with things like budgeting, how taxes work, how much of your salary to save, the difference between many more fortunate people's mindsets and many less fortunate people's mindsets, and things like that. I've also learned from my AP U.S. Government and Politics class that decision making as a concept is what the entire economy is, and runs off of. You have to look out for the ways people try to influence your decisions with what you spend your money on, with things like marketing and promotion. When I am let out into the world with the opportunity to start a career for myself, I wish to find an on-campus job quickly in order to help cover the costs of college and general education. Whether it be with helping better someone's mental health, helping increase someone's financial security, or what have you, the most important thing to me is helping other people, which is something I think can be achieved with saved money as well, and I hope to save up enough money to be able to start a local bakery later on in my career, where we can serve people who may not be able to afford food, and anyone else who needs it, because I think warm feeling food has a psychological effect on people that can make them much more happy, and I would hate for people not to have access to food in that way. I think it can be difficult to help others when you yourself don't have much to give in the first place, and so a giving environment is something I want to contribute whenever I have an excess.

When I was younger, my dad saw many of my qualities and interests as feminine - Some of the shows I watched, my reactions to things like working outside or eating certain foods, and even some of the friends I would hang out with most. To top it all off, he would call me princess when I showed one of these traits, and while this didn't bother me all that much, it did simmer for quite a while in my head - Why did I act that way if I wasn't a girl? Later on in life, I had heard throwaway comments about transgender individuals, and being from a conservative family, many of them would be negative. I moved closer to the Detroit area, and had gotten a long with a few friends who were atypical in their gender presentation, and that's when I began to question my own gender identity - Sure I had had thoughts about desiring to be a girl in the past, but it didn't seem like a possibility then. I didn't get to truly understand what gender really was until fairly recently, and even now am still fascinated by it. Currently I am heavily interested in psychology, and how our brains work, and want to use this interest to help other people. Gender is very much included in this interest, and I regularly will search and read about gender identities that aren't prevalent in my part of Western society, such as many identities held by certain members of indigenous American communities, or identities held by people in some more Eastern countries like the Philippines, and India. All of us are people who don't feel they fall into the rigid boxes people are socially placed in based on our anatomy, and there are so many people who may not know what they are feeling, or may not have a safe outlet to speak of, learn about, or ponder their own identity, whether that be gender, sexuality, culture, or other aspects of their sense of self. I want to help create a space that is non-judgmental to those who simply want to discuss their feelings, or ask questions about their experiences, because that is what I wish I had far sooner than I did, and what I hope everyone can get, no matter their troubles. With this scholarship, I hope to shoot for the degree I want, and get the experience necessary to form this safe space, as being capable of helping people through their own thoughts and experiences will help me reach out, and hopefully educate more people through clubs and focus groups, so that I may have a positive impact on how the world views people who aren't just heteronormative men or women, like me.