Hospitality has been at the forefront of my life for 17 years now. The act and career of making people comfortable. It sounds simple when I tell people I'm majoring in hospitality management; they see my mother, and they connect the dots. She and my father met while working at a hotel, the photographer fell in love with the head of hospitality marketing and 9 years later I was born. But that is not why I am on this path. I spent my 17 years on this Earth in and out of hospitals. My father was chronically ill for my entire life, with epilepsy, lung cancer, heart disease, strokes, and the rest of the medical school textbooks. I grew up looking out of the window of MGH; every re-admittance came with a wish for a good view and a room alone. I watched my cartoons on tiny TVs in the corner of the room and fell asleep in gurneys under itchy blankets. The other side of my life was spent with my mother, traveling to hotels and places across the world. I've seen the pyramids, listened to house music in Ibiza, ridden the rides at Disney, and seen Venice before it flooded. I'm very grateful for my mother, and her work. The conferences she is hired to attend take her around the globe, and she took me too. To remind me there is more than the hospital walls, that my father wanted me to explore. I want to use my degree to help the unseen side of hospitality. I want to make hospitals where people are not constantly reminded of everything going on. Somewhere comfortable. Somewhere, moms are not afraid to take their children, children can see their father and not just the oxygen tube in his nose. Somewhere people do not feel the heaviness of being. My father passed 1 year ago, I miss him every day, but he would not want me to sulk. He would want me to pursue my dream of studying in Australia. He would want me to pursue of my dream of making hospitals hospitable, he would want me to live like him. Making people comfortable is my passion. Making the little girl whose life is parallel to mine comfortable is what I was put on this Earth to do.

A person I truly admire is my cousin, Yasmine. She has shown me more than enough lessons to qualify her for this position. She has taught me perseverance, Arabic, the value of hard work, the meaning of a liability case, and given me enough power to grit my teeth and get through it all. When I transferred schools I was overwhelmed with how much I didn't know. I didn't know anyone, I didn't know anything about theology, I didn't know how to even get there without a GPS. But I learned, with the help and overwhelming support of my cousin, that I will get through it. My cousin is a lawyer, she works for the district attorney. She is who I admire. She pushed me to join mock trial, I owe it all to her. Mock trial was new to me. I didn't know if I wanted to be a lawyer but I knew I wanted to talk. Talk to everyone and anyone. Debate wasn't offered at my school but I knew I could talk my way into everything. So I talked my way into joining the club, becoming a witness in a plane crash case, and winning our season. I now take pride in my role as captain and co-president of my team. I enjoy bearing witness to people discovering their talents, their futures, and their self-confidence. It has given me a chance to look in myself and see what I want to offer to people. I used to be nervous talking to new people. I used to not willingly speak to a stranger without a friend next to me. But my cousin does it every day, she speaks for people. Those who cannot speak anymore, those who are scared of the audience, those who are victims, those who deserve justice. She showed me this superpower of hers, and she passed it on to me. She taught me that my voice is more than mine, it can be for the girl who needs to get out or for the man who needs more help than shown on the surface level. More people depend on my voice than just me. Learning this skill, and all the others that come with mock trial experience, has pushed me to higher standards, made me a better person, and made me motivated to help who I can and how I can. Mock trial is not just for aspiring lawyers; it is for people learning to find their voice, I thank my cousin every day for proving that to me.

My name is Lilly Van Soest and I now have one parent. My father has always been ill, cancer, heart disease, epilepsy, strokes, fluid in his lungs, and almost everything that fills medical textbooks. But he has also been alive, he's had three kids, 2 dogs, 4 cats, 10 siblings, 2 parents, 100 nights in the Sinai Desert, driven Alfa Romeos, spoke 7 languages, and traveled the world. He has always been in my life, whether from a hospital bed or not. He pushed me to be my best, like all parents. But he specifically forced me to finish what I started. I live with that mentality with me to this day. I lost my father in my junior year of high school, which is hailed as the most difficult year, for some, it's because of the academics, for me, I was learning to be half an orphan. Learning to be without him was hard, but I found my community. My friends whose parents took me in like their second child, my co-workers who had been through the same thing. It's morbid to open your eyes and realize how many children are missing one of their parents. But for the children, it affects it brings people together. We bonded over stories and tattoos which we dedicated. My job was as a camp counselor; my group was 7-year-olds, and I loved it. I had been working with kids for the YMCA for 3 years but never outside, all day, all summer. The kids took to me as I took to them, and as I was more open about my parents, they reciprocated. I heard stories of kids who didn't like being home, kids who didn't know their parents, and kids who lost their fathers and mothers. Being open with my story, as much as I used to hesitate about it, gave others the strength to be open to me. Losing my father strangely showed me it is not weak to ask for help. Take it when offered, and seek it when needed. I refused to take pity, and I refuse to let people shame me for it. I have grown into the woman he wants me to be. I have spent my days accumulating hundreds of service hours for kids like me. I spend my days with my mother and sister like he would have wanted. I have embodied the person he molded me to be. I am not behind in society, I am not lacking. I am different like everyone else. I am living the non-linear life I was supposed to due to a diagnosis of Hodgkin-lymphoma. This terrible disease ruined my life and ended my father's. It shattered what I knew, how I lived, and who I was. But I picked up the pieces, with the help of my friends, family, community, and faith in my father, and I have re-assembled a new picture. A picture more colorful than the last.

If not you are not making the most out of your life, and that is all you can do while you're here. I learned this lesson from my mother and father. My mother has always supported my educational journey. She has always pushed for me to step out of the bounds, go as far as I can, live as wild as can be lived. She was born in Egypt, flying thousands of miles away to go to UMass Amherst for college, her dream. After that she met my father, working at a hotel in Sharm El Sheikh. They hated each other, but as time grew, that changed. My father was never big on his education, rarely telling stories from school. He's from the Netherlands, he went to all the required schooling but it never led him the path he wanted to go. He did not want to be a businessman like his father, like the school teachers told him to be. He wanted to be a photographer, he wanted to bind books, he wanted art to devour him. He would stay up late designing alphabet tiles that would consume me and my sister, that is how I learned the alphabet, not in school. My mother and my father's combination of ideals has taught me alot. It taught me grades mean little, it taught me that passion means everything, it taught me what is started must be finished, and it taught me to fight for what I want. Growing up with this made conventional school hard, so I switched. Making the conscious decision to transfer schools to better myself was something I knew made my parents proud. Without their support I wouldn't have gotten that far. The support my parents have given me throughout the years made me who I am. It pushed me to get what I have today, it is from them I have what I have. 1 dog - from constant nagging, 3 jobs, a 3.5 GPA, 3 AP classes I fought for after being told I wasn't good enough, it gave me ambition, strength, perseverance, an inability to hear how loud I am, lots of distant family, dual citizenship, my clothes, my house, love. When I lost my father after 16 long years of him battling cancer, epilepsy, strokes, heart disease, and everything else in medical school textbooks, I was not as sad as everyone expected. Grieving someone while they are alive is hard, but asking for sympathy is harder. My father taught me to fight for respect, he would have given me a hug, wiped my tears, and told them to prove them wrong. I've been bullied for losing a parent, been told I would never achieve leadership roles because of it, and it has not made me stronger. It has kept me the same person I was raised to be. My father knew one day he wouldn't be here to make me feel better, so he taught me to self - regulate. To wipe my own tears, to prove everyone wrong.

The day of silence, 7th grade, before I became myself. I show up to school early, get a card reading the name and life of someone who had taken their life due to being bullied for being gay. A community service obligation for others, for me an eye opening experience. I had always been around gay people, stemming from my sibling, Aisha. Aisha is non-binary, uses they/them pronouns, and is loud and proud about issues they care about. I on the other hand differ, I use she/her pronouns, I am a lesbian, I am proud but not loud, not due to being ashamed but due to being silenced. I love my sibling, but from the day they came out I have been labeled a bigot. I do not know why or how this conclusion got drawn. To my sibling I cannot be "gay", it's out of the norm, it doesn't "make sense" for me. And the same conclusion got drawn for me to everyone else. In my small town there a handful of kids out, kids that also could not process the fact we had something in common. But I found my group. In my group I found people that accept me, that believe me, they do not force me to advocate for something I didn't think could be disproved. I see myself as someone who gives back. I spend my days after school with kids, making sure their homework is done, making sure their healthy, clean, that their parents come to pick them up. I do not leave until they do. In the summers I'm a camp counselor, I spend my days with kids that might not have someone that can watch them, that might not be safe or comfortable at home, that are growing into their own. I think there is a duty to everyone who was in those programs as a kid to give back, I was in after school programs for years. I was watched every day after school and in the summer. I was babysat. My mother was working, my father in and out of the hospital. I like giving back to those kids, even though I hated getting watched. But there's beauty in that, the beauty that I can take this experience that was detrimental for me, even though I hated it and turn it around for another kid. I plan on studying hospitality. I plan on making people comfortable for the rest of my life. I plan on making the hospital walls that I grew up in somewhere that kids will no attribute with their sick parent, but with just a place to be. I plan on comfort being the way to rule the world. Make sure everyone has a place to stay, to live, to be, to grow. This scholarship is important to me. I cannot afford my schooling, to go to a good hospitality school it is 52,000 dollars a year. I have worked hard to get to this point, to spread my message. I have persevered through loss, bullying, starting over, and yet not being able to afford college is the thing that is beating me. I work 3 jobs, I do 2 sports, I try my hardest, and this scholarship will help me get to my goal.

Opening my report in freshman year I was received with a set of numbers that has been stuck in my mind since. 73, 30, 30, 0, 90, 45. The same results came in 8th grade too, its not that I didn't try, its that I was stuck. A loop of opening my computer, joining a zoom, sit straight for 3 hours, sign off, attempt homework, give up after an hour, see my friends. I never realized how badly I need to sit with someone 1 on 1 to understand things. So I transferred schools, let my friend and everything I knew to study in a school 20 minutes away, in a grade of 97, and I love it. My grades changed immensely. I didn't want to transfer schools but it was worth it and I remind myself every day. Not just when I see and talk to the people I would have never known but when I learn the things I would have never realized going unnoticed in school. My sisters are both very good at art, I couldn't keep up. I always wanted my "thing", when I transferred schools, I got it. DECA, the Distributive Education Clubs of America. Business club, as I call it. I took up roleplays, acting as a high title employees of whatever situation I get handed. You sit down in a room, have 20 minutes to read and solve the problem, then serve it to a judge, answer their questions, and pray. I loved it, every second of it. Acting like my mom, a businesswoman who has never had fault in her words. Meeting new people, talking. I love talking and being able to create a name for myself just off of that was the second most rewarding thing I have been able to do my high school career. My first one was becoming friends with Molly, my ginger friend. Everytime I see her she makes me smile, she has made me into a better person. When I lost my dad she was first to come to my house with a fruit basket. Being surrounded by such pure light has made me close to mimic the same actions. I have been told im happier, and I take that with pride. Taking control on my education has shown me my full potential. I now spend every night during the weekdays watching kids, helping them with their homework and playing with them. I learned how to keep my relationships strong with my friends from Melrose, and Bishop Fenwick. I have learned how to merge the two groups and keep them having fun and being civil. I have learned how to sit and study a way that works to me. I have learned to help others now with the advice I was filled with. Being able to use these skills in college is something I hope I have the ability to do, being able to S.M.I.L.E and teach others the lessons I have now learned is something I strive for.

The first word on my mother's website is empowerment, in big, bold letters. My mother has always taught me the importance of bringing others up with you and rising the ranks with those who helped you. To this day, I believe in this mindset over everything. My mother came to this country during her sophomore year of college. From Egypt she learned valuable lessons in not taking what she had for granted, appreciating the work others did for you, and learning to work for yourself. She saved for her education in the hopes she could pay it forward. Fast forward to when my mother had me, she had turned from an immigrant student to CEO of her marketing agency. She had paid it forward. Empowering herself and the women around her to join her in the crusade of feminism. I joined my mother on her work ventures, women and men flocked to her for words of wisdom. I felt nothing but gratitude that she was my mother. I've watched her bend over backward to pay for my education, my sister's education, and my father's medical bills, and praying we didn't see that side of our lives. Empowerment affects my life every day. I was raised in the mindset of people deserve to thrive as much as you. Your victory is just as strong as the weakest person it affects. My mother is my beacon of hope that I can achieve whatever I choose, and on top of that, I know how to make sure no one is left behind. Empowerment is the one thing in the world that is done in a solo effort that can affect millions, a domino effect of a positive attitude. My mother has paid off her debt, she has taught me to never take on any either, and as I become a future college freshman I am nothing but determined to show her, that her lessons worked. I absorbed them as well as the empowerment she has instilled in me from beyond birth. That her story was empowering enough to show me how to live. How to advocate for myself. How to bring others up. How to achieve what I desire with or without any help I can accumulate. Empowerment means living in my mother's image, it affects me every day. It showed me who and how to be, without it I am no longer my mother's daughter, no woman is. We need empowerment in future generations to cement women's place in the world. We are less of homemakers and more of CEOs, soul providers for families, hard workers, immigrants, mothers, and everything else combined. If we as women do not lift each other, we let each other fall.

My mom was a single mother my entire life, even when my dad was still alive. For 15 out of my 17 years of life, he was chronically ill. He had cancer 3 times, 2 strokes, 3 children, 1 open heart surgery, 1 brain surgery, 1 pacemaker, 1 dog, 2 cats, 1 camera in his brain, 40 years of epilepsy, a cut-short career in graphic design, 1 lovely wife, 10 siblings, 1 green card, and a love for the simplicity of life. At times he couldn't be there for me. He missed presentations, games, and parent-teacher conference meetings. It wasn't his fault, but for my life, my mom was in loco parentis, and my mother was my father too. She was stern, she was sweet, she was there, she gave me space. The duality of man has been implemented in my life since the start. My mother was like Two-Face from Batman, never knew if I was dealing with her or my father. My mother supported 3 kids, 2 cats, 1 dog, and 1 husband, and battled a million doctors and nurses while owning a marketing business and being a full-time around-the-world traveler for it. I watched from afar in perfect awe just how much she did for everyone. She instilled in me that if I can provide I should. I yearn to follow in her footsteps. Being a business owner is something I am truly proud of, in an industry I have been a trailblazer in. I want people to need my name involved with things to make it appealing to the cause. When my father died he left with me the most valuable thing he could, the lessons he showed me every day of his life that I should be respectable, poise, and nice, to everyone. That people deserve everything you can give them. That if you can help you help, and if you can't you find a way. In the future, I hope to do a lot of things. I hope to be a mother, a hotel chain owner, and a Forbes 30 under 30. I hope to be a wife, like my mother was, devoted truly to sickness or health. I hope to be a trailblazer in my field. A name is required to bring attention to anything. I hope to be important, to be wanted, to be needed. I hope to do good things for good people. I hope to be a light people look towards when in need. I hope to be exactly who my father wanted me to be, and exactly how my mother raised me to be.

A drink that holds a very near and dear spot in my heart is a Chai Latte. Specifically with vanilla cold foam 2 pumps of pumpkin spice, and light ice. Because though it quickly becomes freezing in Massachusetts I can never bring myself to get it hot. I first ordered this drink in 2020, taking the asynchronous part of school to walk downtown. Me and my friends at the time would take our ventis and the occasional Grande when we didn't have enough money to the skate park where we would attempt at best skateboarding and scootering. Months later when our skateboards lost their grip and scooters lost their appeal we started drifting apart. But with a few modifications our group drink was still intact - what was pumpkin spice became caramel. Once settled with new people in a new school, my drink order became a constant through bad days at school and small celebrations. I associated it with not only my past but my present. After being introduced I can proudly say it is my sister's and mom's regular order. Even with a few failed attempts to recreate it at home. My friends now prefer a strawberry acai refresher or a wild combination of blonde espresso and syrups. Though they do not drink what I do they respect it nonetheless, which is something I learned is required in every friendship. If someone can stand you in their terms "ridiculous" drink order (just because it has one of two pumps of a new syrup you need to try every time) they will learn to stand you. All the kinks and quirks, all the old hobbies, and they will slowly start to like hearing stories of the old skatepark and how this one time you slipped off a soaking wet skateboard and laid on the ground for a good 20 minutes trying to get over the embarrassment in pouring rain. Now every Saturday after work, a job given to me by my friend who endures every early morning shift of children crying for their mothers will walk down to Starbucks and wait for me to order because per usual I forgot my password to the app. I wait in line and patiently order "Could I get a venti iced chai with vanilla cold foam and 2 pumps of ___ and could I get that with light ice?". Like a script that's severely memorized. I'll pay and walk to the side and wait. While I'll wait my friend will drone on and on about how she's going to quit next week and nothing can stop her. And in the corner of my eye, an old friend will slink by, picking up a mobile order of a venti iced chai latte with light ice, vanilla cold foam, and 2 pumps of whoever they've grown into.