My entire life, I have been surrounded by reminders of how lucky I am to have grown up where I did. My grandparents emigrated from Germany after World War II. They lived through war and dictatorship in their home country, until my grandfather enlisted in the American army to get out. My aunt is from Peru, and she left her family behind and worked three jobs to pay her way through college to an international business degree. Many in my family had to sacrifice everything they knew to access the kinds of opportunities I get just from being an American citizen. That has never been something I take for granted. I am incredibly grateful that my family was able to move to the States, and immigration is an important part of my family's history. However, for many immigration is not the root of the problem. The reason my aunt left her family behind was not because she thought it would be easy to find opportunity in the US. It was because she knew she would not find them in Peru. Immigration is incredibly important, but the fact that it is necessary to obtain a basic standard of living for so many is a tragedy. The strongest, most long-lasting solution is to provide countries in the Global South with the tools and opportunities to build their own economies. In particular, I believe the best way to distribute aid is to women and minority entrepreneurs. In many less developed countries women and minorities are an untapped resource, and providing opportunities to them creates the most potential for change. If an aspiring entrepreneur is given aid to create a business, they can then stimulate their own local economy, from employing others to creating domestic products for consumption to increasing the social standing of women and minorities within their communities. The benefits of this aid strategy are thus multifaceted and long-lasting. I am studying Foreign Affairs, Spanish, and Economics because I want to specialize in international development. I want to empower women and minorities in the Global South, especially in Latin America. I hope to work for an aid organization that provides entrepreneurship opportunities for women and minorities. Eventually, I hope to go to law school to create a bigger impact in the field and eventually become an immigration lawyer. I want to make sure the coming generations have the same choice my family did. I want to give the grandchildren of my future clients the same opportunities that I am so grateful for. But most of all, I want to help those in the Global South make their own change, so in the future people like my aunt don't have to leave behind everything they know just to have a chance at a better life.

I want to see the stigma surrounding disabilities to disappear. Most specifically, I am involved in my local deaf community. Deaf individuals, on average, earn lower salaries than their hearing colleagues. The unemployment rate for the deaf population is far higher than that of the general population as a whole. And suicide rates for deaf and disabled individuals are higher than those of the general population. When most people hear that someone is deaf, the first thing that comes to their mind is what the deaf person can't do. Prospective employers assume that deaf people can't communicate with the rest of their colleagues. In many professions, especially blue-collar jobs, deaf people are considered a danger to the workplace. If a worker can't hear a yelled warning in a crowded kitchen, construction site, or warehouse, employers assume it could mean danger and lawsuits for the company. And so deaf people have to work ten times as hard to convince people that they are capable of the same things as hearing people. Nobody ever considers what deaf people can do. Deaf and hearing impaired people are still people. They are as capable as any hearing person in everything other than their ability to hear. And they are better at some things. Continuing with the construction site example, they are unbothered by the loud noises. They excel at reading gestures and facial expressions. In an environment like a construction site, where loud noises could make it near impossible for even a hearing person to understand what someone is saying, deaf individuals have the advantage. And yet they are still passed up for the job. There are more issues surrounding the deaf community than employment, of course. The deaf and deafblind community is one of the most looked-over minority groups in the world. Most counties do not have enough deaf schools for all of the hearing-impaired students, and some have to go to public schools (which often negatively impacts their education). There are only five deaf colleges in the world that provide a decent education. And many families of deaf children never even attempt to learn American Sign Language (ASL). I started becoming involved in the deaf community after I started to learn ASL. I began teaching myself ASL because I thought it was a unique and interesting language. I kept learning it because I wanted to be able to connect with all of the amazing people I met while volunteering. Eventually, after witnessing how deaf people were treated with my own eyes, I realized I had to do something. During junior year, I founded and organized a charity 5k for the deaf community in my county, which I named Run the Distance for the Deaf (RDD). As I knew very few people who were passionate about this issue, I was on my own. I had to manage the bank account and taxes, create and sell merchandise, sell to sponsors, promote the race, create tickets, organize where and when the race would be held, design the website, and take care of any other problems that arose. I worked on this from the beginning of junior year until April, when the race was held. I ended up raising over $1300. That money went to an organization that provided sign language lessons for the families of deaf children and tutoring for deaf children in public schools. Since then, I have continued my fight to bring awareness to the issue. I have posted on social media, I have kept the RDD website updated with statistics and opportunities to volunteer to help the local deaf community. I have emailed and spoken with dozens of leaders in my area about bringing awareness to the issue. Several agreed to help promote volunteering opportunities with the deaf community, including the East Lake Fire Rescue and the Volunteer Coordinator at my YMCA. While continuing economic complications from COVID have made things difficult, I am planning on holding the run again this year. This year, I have a fundraising goal of $2500. I hope to not only monetarily aid the deaf community (most specifically the deaf children), but to continue to raise awareness. Change cannot happen with only me. If we are going to really improve the lives of the deaf community, we are going to need an army.

“The key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic and some are made of glass.” – Nora Roberts This quote is my mantra because I love to challenge myself, and I have a tendency to take on too many things at once. I play tennis, volleyball, and basketball, I go to and have a perfect GPA at the most rigorous school in my county, and I know three languages and am teaching myself another, all while also applying to college and being on the board of four clubs, including president of two. That is a lot of commitments, and right now I am at the maximum of what I can handle. Last year, when I had virtual school, I was able to add a couple more things on my plate like organizing a charity 5k and writing a novel, but this year I had to let those things go. I looked at my life, decided which activities were glass balls, and let the rest fall. Roberts’s quote reminds me that things like my mental and physical health take precedence over, for example, my tennis practice. When I start to feel overwhelmed, the first thing I do is figure out which balls are plastic, and I let those drop. I can pick them back up later. The glass ones, I take care of. In the last year, I have used this mantra heavily as I have struggled with accepting my sexuality. As much as it galled my pride, I had to recognize that things like my job, the novel I was writing, and most of my extracurriculars were plastic. I worked on them when I could, but I gave myself permission to let them fall. There were too many glass balls in the air to be also trying to catch the plastic ones – my schoolwork as I prepared to apply to college, my relationships with my friends during COVID, and especially my mental health, as I realized what I wanted for my life was fundamentally different than what I had thought my whole life. That mantra convinced my to give myself space to breathe. I went from trying to do everything, all the time, to exceling at prioritizing and having balance in my life (busy though it is). That quote is the best metaphor I have found for how impossible it is to do everything, even if you think you can. Nobody can juggle a hundred balls at once. Such a task seems overwhelming, impossible. Terrifying. But if ninety-seven of those balls are plastic, it is doable. Anybody can juggle three important balls. In fact, some would say juggling three balls is easy. It all depends on your perspective.