Calling my health a journey is an understatement. When I was little I was a spitfire, active and always running around. I loved climbing rocks, skateboarding, biking, hiking, and getting roughed up outside all day long. However, my diet was not so healthy, as when I was a kid I was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder. This has characteristics of autism-like extreme food selection and refusal to eat anything other than comfort foods. Soi even though I was active I began to gain weight. This was made even worse by the bullying I endured when I got to elementary school, with kids telling me I couldn't sit with them because I would break the seat on the bus, throwing food at me, and generally shaming me for my looks. I was lonely and misunderstood and this made me stressed eating these already unhealthy comfort foods like mac and cheese, ice cream, and cookie dough. I finally received some occupational therapy to help me navigate being neurodivergent and this helped me get my life back on track and open up my palate and socialize more with my classmates. Unfortunately, this was not enough to stop the bullying even if I was barely overweight at this point. I remember around 5ht grade when this taunting started to impact me and I began to long to look like everyone else. I became obsessed with dieting, exercise, and my looks. I was only a number to myself and had such strict rules with food that I ate nearly the same thing every day. I ended up losing a lot of weight and went from 160 to 120 pounds, but that was not enough for me. Despite me now being healthy I still saw the chubby and bullied girl when I looked in the mirror. I starved myself more and more until my mom and my friends became so worried about me that they urged me to go to the doctor to make sure my physical health was okay. When I got to the hospital with my mom I was examined and a general physical was done. I heard the doctors whispering behind closed doors anxiously. Eventually, they sent me to the cardiac unit for an EKG and blood draw. I could not figure out why until they told me that my resting heart rate was 40 bpm and that I could die in my sleep. They also told me that my electrolytes and vitamins were dangerously low. Because of this, they had to put me on a hold and take me to the children's eating disorder unit. It was sad and almost ironic how in my attempts to become healthier I became more at risk than ever. I stayed a month in that hospital and lost even more weight when I was afflicted with the norovirus (a horrible version of the stomach flu). I started my 7th-grade year 2 weeks late because of this and I felt super outcast and horrible about my social life. But I made the move to recover. I meal planned and started going to the gym and working out healthily. I joined a marching band and played basketball for a while and I was thriving. I will not lie and say that I did not struggle and relapse but it was manageable and I never got to the hospitalization point again. I graduated high school as a competitive rock climber, hiker, and healthy and happy person.

Empathy. That is what service means to me. Now, and in the future. Empathy, always. I think that it takes empathy at every step of community service. It takes empathy to care about issues enough to apply to volunteer, empathy while you work for your community, and empathy to keep giving back. I have been raised in an environment where I was always taught the value of kindness and stepping into others' shoes. In high school, I clocked about 80 plus hours of service despite the requirement only being 20 hours. And I have volunteered before and after that. Everything from the smallest act of buying cheesecake with my mom in downtown Denver from the Cheesecake Factory and giving it out to the hungry homeless on the streets around us to large organizations like Rocky Mountian Mutual Aid I have delivered food boxes to those in need to fresh groceries. When I was little, I remember reading a story about buckets. Everyone has a bucket full of water above their head, and when you do something mean, you spill the water out of somebody else's bucket and fill yours a little bit. But when you give to others and show them kindness, you fill your bucket and theirs. And that's how volunteering and giving back have always felt for me. It makes me feel like I have a purpose and connection in my community. It is mutual love and mutual empathy. This is why I am going to college in the first place. I want to help others. I want to have a lasting positive impact on others. I want to give empathy back to my world. With my degree I plan on doing therapy for children and adolescents, some of the most vulnerable demographic for mental illness, suicide, and abuse. I want to pursue a practice of inclusivity, accessibility, and equity. That is also why I am taking anti-racism courses, and am involved in a human development and family systems minor. I want to make my practice anti-racist, anti-misogynistic, anti-classist, and pro-love. I want to give back to the profession that saved my life when I was struggling with mental illness. Thus, if I receive this generous award, you can be sure it is in good hands. Empathetic hands. Hands that have delivered food, held protest signs at the capitol to call for equity, held others up, wiped tears from the defeated, and cradled animals in shelters. Hands that will see more love and empathy throughout my career.

Hello there, I'm Hannah Farris. I am a Colorado native who grew up in Littleton and went to Mountain Vista High School. I've been up and down mountains, literally and figuratively. I did my first fourteener at 14 (Mt.Bierstadt) and also had my first heartbreak at 14 when I was sexually assaulted. As I entered high school I started growing more and more depressed and anxious and I decided I need therapy. This helped me get back on track from my academic and social delinquency that I had acted on since elementary school. See, I wasn't a bad kid, but the mountains and hurdles of mental illness and bullying I had to deal with every day brought out the absolute worst in me. In elementary, I was always overwhelmed. I have Sensory Processing Disorder and am on the spectrum and this caused me to act out all the time because I felt so trapped and alienated from the other children around me. In middle school, I came out as a lesbian and was discriminated against as an outcast once again. After my assault in high school, this culminated and I first thought about not wanting to be alive. I was having panic attacks daily and not wanting to work or get out of bed. I felt defeated. So I started the trek up. As I climbed more mountains in the Rocky range I climbed ones in my school, social, and emotional sectors. I started rock climbing and getting involved in choir and band. I found friends who supported me even in a hateful and extremely strict environment. I fought against this hate and lobbied for change at the capitol. I went to pride. I celebrated my past and how far I had come. And I landed at the summit, graduating with honors and a passion for helping troubled kids like me. This brought me to the base of my next peak: college. I am currently in the heart of Denver and CU Denver and I am studying psychology with a minor in human development and family relationships. My hope is to graduate and get a master's in counseling so that I can work on therapy with children and adolescents. I want to give back to the profession that saved my life. My path ahead may not be easy or exactly as a view it now, but I want to do all I can to help people climb their personal mountains.

Did she rise from the sea? The pearl in the sea shell? Or is she from the stars? A celestial body, a constellation? Is she made? Or has she always been there? What came first? The woman or the world? Was she born from the meadow? Formed of soft light and floral beauty? Or is she from the thicket? A being of power from deep in the woods? How is she soft and warm? But cold as steel and deadly? Is she forged in iron? Made from volcano heat and ore ripped from the maw of a cave? Is she from the tiger? Ruthless in her greatness? Or is she formed from pixie dust? A fantastical creature too complex for myth? Is she from the butterfly? Graceful as air and elusive? What forms her? Where are the boundaries of her aura and her influence? Is she all-encompassing? Does she form her own universe each time she laughs or smiles? Does she exist on her own plane? The realm of the woman, the sphere of her reign? How can you deserve a woman? Does she choose you, do you choose her? What comes first? Her vicious love or your unwavering devotion? -Origins of a Woman