Growing up, I loved Belle. More often than not, my dress-up days made it out of the house while I wore my plastic heals and big yellow dress to my grandpa's birthday or even to the store. I felt like a princess, but most importantly, Belle was a princess that resembled me. I loved that her true self was never shunned by that of what society wanted her to be like. I also love to read, so I find that imagination and reading allow me to continue to express my creativity and educate myself. For me, education is something that no one can take away. I loved that no matter what the outside influences were, she always stuck to her morals, and because of that, she surrounded herself with people who appreciated her for who she truly was and not for what she wanted other people to view her as. In High school and primarily through life, I found it can be a struggle. I deal with constant inner battles of not overshadowing my pure soul from the peer pressure or the social constructs that shy me away from my values of who I am. It can be very overwhelming entering a whole new school or dealing with social hierarchies when all you want to do is fit in. So seeing Disney characters like Belle, who, through her journey, found a purpose far greater by sticking to herself, truly inspired me to walk out of the house owning that dress, showing up to school day after day, and continuing to surround myself with people that make me better. By attending UC Davis this fall, I am excited to continue using this ideology as I carry on my journey to break barriers by becoming the first doctor in my family, changing the status quo, and being the real-life princess I looked up to all along.

Our family dog is known as Dexter. He is a rescue that changed my life. It is true when people say that when you rescue a dog, they save your life too. Dexter came into my life when I was in fourth grade. My dad works for Elk Grove PD and is friends with one of the people who take care of the animal shelters in our area. He said that Dexter was a Chihuahua. So when Dexter showed up at our house looking like a Shitzu mixed with anything but a Chihuahua, that was very confusing. He had a rough life. He lived on the streets for over two years, and our family also saved him from being put down. At first, Dexter was very hesitant. He was nervous and very clumsy. He also was shaved because he had very matted fur when he was rescued. Dexter is the only dog I know with fast-growing hair which can save hair loss. He is known for his big brown eyes and hilarious personality. When we give him his seasonal haircuts, we always keep his mustache. He resembles the Lorax very much. He loves to make us laugh. He has lots of energy bursts when he runs in circles and zooms through the house. He loves to be scratched on his lower back and taken out for walks. Dexter has allowed me to open up to not just animals more, but people. Through his journey, I learned not to judge someone based on their past. Dexter is the best dog I could have asked for. He makes me smile every day. We recently bought him a hoodie and a Dodgers jersey so he can celebrate sports and stay fashionably warm during the winter. Dexter is also very unique. He doesn't know how to bark, so he coughs a little louder than normal. He was abused in his past, so he lost his ability to talk. My mom says it is nice sometimes because he is not annoying our neighbors by barking at squirrels or overly sized rats, but I think Dexter is cool. In fact, he is super cool. He likes to get our attention in ways he can. He jumps on the glass door and scratches with his nails. He likes to snore in his bed really loud, and he also smiles. If anyone says dogs don't smile, they never had a happy dog before because Dexter is the most smiley dog out there. He is a joy that brings me happiness and a lovable friend. I learned to love more than ever whenever Dexter is by my side. He taught me patience and how time creates a bond like none other. Dexter has created the greatest sense of comfort, support, unconditional love, and memories that will last a lifetime. So the next time you hear about a dog rocking a mustache, wearing a hoodie, zooming through your neighborhood with the biggest smile on his face, with a nickname of Dexie, I remind you that that dog was a rescue who showed me the power of a home.

Growing up with mental illness, I had trouble dealing with my emotions because I believed that I was the only one going through it. I believed that this was my problem and that I was the only person to fix it. In hindsight, I realized that I was wrong, that mental illness affects a broad range of people, and that internalizing the problem can do more harm than good. Over time I was able to overcome this illness by first addressing the problem, educating myself about the problem, and taking the needed steps to fix it. I learned that ignoring it created a temporary solution that later built on the problem. To fix this, a practical solution is to address mental health more in school starting at earlier ages. Mental health wasn't addressed in my elementary school or middle school, only when I got to high school, I was able to get support. By starting younger, mental health will be normal and create a safe space for kids at young ages to express themselves because waiting until they are older, will only heighten the problem. At earlier ages, this will also encourage children to talk about it and realize that these problems are common amongst their peers and the people around them. As adults, I feel educating their children about mental health can really help their kids express themselves and work through their own problems. In all, mental health is very underappreciated and looked over. As seen in the Olympics, this is just an example of the complexity this illness has over someone's headspace. Mental illness should never be taken lightly over placed lower than any other illness.

Growing up, I played soccer. Soccer was the sport that allowed me to control my anxiety and run off my energy. But when I was in eighth grade, I tore my ACL in a game. I was taken away from my sport, the sport that defined my life at the time. An ACL recovery consists of going through surgery and a one-year rehabilitation process. As a 13-year old, this was all new to me and a journey that I wasn't prepared for. Going into the recovery process, my mental side and all my anxiety worked their way back up and I was lost. Soccer was a safe place for me to control my emotions and clear my head and without it, I was finding so much time to myself. Through the months I tested myself and my family. I was never someone to have mental breakdowns often, but I was finding myself having them every day. Every day felt longer and my patience was hanging by a thread. In hindsight but most importantly through the journey I am so thankful for the opportunity that this injury gave me. Before hurting myself, I was closed-minded, I thought that soccer was the only way out and that I wasn't allowed to try new things. During my time off, I took advantage of opportunities, I joined clubs I wouldn't have done beforehand, met incredible people at my physical therapy, and got really good grades in school. I was able to search for more hobbies and start to hang out with my family more. During this period, I also learned who was there for me and who were my true friends and family. I am so thankful for those people in my life and the importance their impact had on me. In recovery, I had to be resilient. I was resilient from missing my first two days of high school because of surgery, making sure to slowly get to recovery and not rush it, listen to my body, priority strengthening the muscles, and rest. Today, I still keep a lot of what I have learned. I am much wiser and I thank every piece of adversity that was associated with that time in my life. My injury was not just a year that defines me, it is a year that made me into the person I am. I don't take anything for granted, I live more in the moment, and I most importantly love what I do. Thanks to adversity I am open-minded, I seek discomfort because I am able to grow, and lastly being able to help others.

"Two things define you, your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything" - George Bernard Shaw To me, generosity means the ability to be kind, give to others, and continue your generous character even at the hardest times in your own life. When I think of the most generous people, I think of my grandma. My grandma is very poor, but every year, she always makes sure my siblings and I get a Christmas and have the life she wasn't given. Her generosity lives in the days where she is faced with hardship and when she is the lowest in her life. Having a hero like my grandma growing up, I am inspired by her love for not only herself but for everyone around her. She would split her food to make sure everyone would eat and she would rather starve than allow anyone to go hungry. No matter the situation, she put herself last. I am so thankful for her that I spread her love to the people around me. As an older sister, I make sure my younger sister is taken care of and that my mom doesn't work harder than she needs to. I don't put myself first and anywhere I go, I make sure to thank others, give compliments, and tip whatever I can. Thanks to my heroes like my grandma, generosity is not gone but stored in the community that gives to others and cares for each other.

"The man who thinks he can and the man who thinks he can't are both right" -Confuscious Growing up, quotes have been a tool I have used to strengthen my mental game and put me one step closer to pursuing my potential. This quote was introduced to me when I was in elementary school and once again in high school when my math teacher who puts a quote on the board decided to write this one. I remember reading it and the words took me back to when I first saw it. These words resonated with me because the mental side is something that is very important to me. I often read mindset books that explain the power the mind has over obstacles and the way one can create positive energy around any situation. With this quote, I was able to relate my actions with my ability to set my mind to an event, outcome, or goal and go after it. I see this quote as a building block into the mindset that sets a person from their dreams, the next step, or their ability to define their life. Whenever I set my mind, I think of this quote and the meaning behind one's mind to create a reality that resembles their determination and perseverance. For when a person truly believes, they will truly become and live in that truth.

Hello, my name is Madison Benitez. I am a senior for this upcoming school year at Laguna Creek High School. Math has always been a part of my life. In elementary school, I remember always asking the teacher to learn more, to understand why, ask questions, and be persistent in the process to understand instead of being a robot adding numbers or solving for x. I would ask questions of why the equation equals x and who came up with the properties I use today. Going into middle school, I continued my love for math by taking accelerated classes. But I wasn't always successful, I remember struggling more than I did in elementary school. I remember getting frustrated with my homework and pop quizzes. Through this time I grew. I was able to preserve and continue to be a learner. I stayed patient and worked on my skills every day from doing khan academy, redoing the class questions, and even doing the even numbers for homework when my class was assigned just the odds. Through this time, I was able to stay with math. Math draws me because it is a universal language. Math is a platform that defines the technology we see today and with that technology, math will always follow to improve as we learn more about the universe we live in. I also draw to the diversity of math, the patterns, the codes, the clues, the unknowables, the foundation that has been a part of my culture and heritage of our time. Into high school, I continued with Honors and now IB math. I am continuing my learning, for it is always a challenge, a challenge that drives me to do better, learn more, and remember where I started. For I wasn't born dividing and adding, and I have not yet mastered all topics, but that's not to say one day I will and be a part of a new property/equation that generations will learn after me. The principles of math shaped my perspective of how complexity is just continued mastery of simplicity. I love how math is learned at all stages and ages. Math would not be what it is today without the passion to discover and identify more. To have the hunger to use what you know not what you could know. I love the example of technology, for technology, is the history of our understanding, for the future will only get more and more complex because we have developed the understanding of simplicity that details the craft for many additions. Math has always been an alleyway for me, a safe space to work and learn. It is a place to grow my character and to be resilient enough to the humility of not knowing. I thank my teachers for their passion to teach me the subjects that I continue to ask questions. I thank math for the opportunity to redefine a nation.

Hello, my name is Madison Benitez. I am going to be a senior at Laguna Creek High School for the 2021-2022 school year. My form of art expression is poetry. Poetry is a form of art that has been a part of my expression since elementary school. I love to write every day and poetry allows me to be the most creative. I love the symbolism and the power words have. I love that there are no rules and no limits. Being an artist means that I am able to pursue my potential in a form of art that defines the passion that I love and that I can share and inspire others to follow their passions as well. As an artist, I am able to redefine the status quo and lead to a change where the world is able to see other perspectives and think differently, be open-minded, and seek change. Poetry has had that effect on me. I found a path toward redefining myself to be a better person and continuing to put in the work every day to chase my dream to make my art public someday. Every day this poetry drives me to create pages that not only reflect the world we live in, but also the world that I have yet to see. The world where art is expressed and taken seriously, where art is an ally to all countries. Poetry also drives me to continue to push myself every day to make the world better by taking small steps into a bigger perspective. I am connected to the words that allow me to phrase the meanings that I can't annotate. Poetry allows me to connect to past artists, current, and future I also hope to inspire as they have done for me. Writing is powerful. It has been an expression for as long as our history and our heritage through languages that are passed on through generations. For me, Kavita was the person who truly changed my mind into knowing that writing is what I love doing and that I can write for fun. Kavita is a friend of my dad's work. She is a very shy person and writes as her way to express herself. Every year, she writes my dad books where she highlights her life and talks through the days. I have read a few and everything from the style of writing to the different color writing, and the tone of her words highlight her mood and allow me to travel through time. The day that changed my writing was when a book came for me instead of for my dad. I opened the book and it was blank. I was very confused but there was a paper that fell out and on that paper, she writes about how a teacher inspired her to write and believed in her. That teacher was Mrs.Donan and her job for Kavita was to fill up a book, no other rules, just to write, and so Kavita did. Kavita wanted to thank her by passing it forward by giving me a blank book and my job was to fill it up. From that day forward, I never stopped writing. To create the change I must first start by investing in myself, the people that have inspired me, the people around me, and the people that I will pass it forward to as well. This scholarship is not just for me. This scholarship is going to invest in the future of writers and the art community, a community that has a voice amongst the silence.

Hello, My name is Madison Benitez. I am a 16-year old from Elk Grove, California attending Laguna Creek High School. My biggest artistic ambition is poetry. I found poetry ever since I was a kid. I love to write and express myself through this form because I find so much symbolism and meaning behind the structure of words and their tone. I write every day to express myself, my emotions, my goals, and my ambitions. This scholarship will really help me take my first step into making my dream come true by pursuing art in college and supporting my love to one day make a book and support others who write poetry as well. This scholarship will also really help me because poetry is a form of art that my parents don't see as a true future that has a successful job. I want to prove to my parents and to myself that poetry is an art that is worth my passion to pursue and continue. I hope that this art can continue past my many books over the years and live to see the world. Here are samples of three poems I have written recently 1. Who stole the imagination from kids to believe anything they desired to be, to create fiction that expressed their reality amongst the chaos of understanding, to lighten the smile with playful and fun, to think outside the scope of intentions, outside the world, I grew to know more solemnly. Who stole the innocence, the laughter, the joy that comes with the spirit. Who decided that children are not only fearless but gifted? 2. I refer to the references of man. That tried their best to explain, Comprehend the place where I stand. I refer to the references of history, where the real satisfying details are lost in time and backgrounds decline. I refer to the references of man when I write for writing is time reading from distance to destination to arrival in history. I refer to the references of mine compared to the people, the wildlife, repeated mystery. I refer to the references of category- the pattern in the story. I refer to the references in total, the references that don't explain. The references that refer a man to life's story. 3. Sometimes I wonder if envy surrenders to the stand out of hope. If the jungle of solemn had a reaction to the skin of the desert persistence. I would've known the goddess that took my wallet of sallow and bought me clothes to wear for my passion in style is doom to happen. When the skin and the blood become philic, I would've known the world would come to mush. So if I was to admit my duty at first. I could speak, I could smurk. In the area I see, I believe, I become. What in case, I finally believe from me.

2026 That's the year I see myself standing on the stage, obtaining my STEM degree from a university. I have worked hard each and every day to come to this moment, and now I am able to reflect on my successes as a stepping stone for my bright future. This degree represents my passion as a STEM learner to further progress my interests into the many opportunities that the world has to offer. In 2026, I see myself not stopping, I see myself applying to medical school and using my love for learning as a platform to my love for all aspects of science, technology, engineering, and math. My vision is to become involved in all aspects of STEM, gather experience, and have a background where I can continue my interests and be very involved in the areas I have come to ask more questions about. Just like going into my last year of high school, I have listened to my interests, taken classes that interest me the most, and challenged my understanding in ways that grew my character and tapped into my potential. By continuing myself into STEM, I am able to represent another perspective into the developing future and give to the next generation. To achieve my goal of graduating from university and applying for further education like med school, I have made action by completing scholarships opportunities like this one to help out my dream because, without these scholarships, I will need a lot of financial support, paying off debt, and will be half-mindedly thinking about money rather than my education. Education is very important to me, I have always enjoyed learning in and out of the classroom and I just hope I can continue that in an area of study that makes me excited to pursue. Why STEM? STEM has always struck my interest. Every class that involved this area, made me want to attend, be around the teachers who were passionate about it too, and every day, I thought about how I saw myself represent the community as well. My end goal is to have a job where I know that when I wake up, I am doing what I would be doing even if I wasn't paid because it is absolutely what I love. This goal is my macro goal. Meaning this goal is my big goal and my plan is all the little micro-goals that add up to meet my macro goal. My micro-goals include finishing high school, applying to university, participating in STEM-related internships, getting into medical school, and finishing all those steps into becoming a doctor in the field. STEM makes me so passionate because there is no limit, no stopping into areas where I can learn, discover and involve myself with. STEM is an opportunity for me to follow my goals and continue my vision by learning STEM at higher levels.

Women. The word Women can take on so many opinions and meanings. This factor depends on culture, beliefs, values, and the impact of the rapid change in society. Society is a place that shapes the culture around where each of us live. We live in a society that endorses and gets all of us into their product, opinion, or belief. As for sometimes, something has been so embedded in society that the daily struggle to fight seems impossible. But it doesn't have to. To empower women, we must first change ourselves, for society makes up each of our input and actions. To empower women, we must first change how each of us treats the women in our lives. Start with your mother, your sister, your daughter. Start thinking about how you empower them. This can also be women empowering each other too. Empowerment for women is as well as men empowering women too. At a much bigger level like a society. It is true that women are less involved and not given a place in the workplace. In the workplace, misrepresenting women is miss representing the population and a whole group of people. When I was thinking about empowering women, a story came to my mind that happened recently. I am a huge fitness person and I enjoy learning about my body and recovery. When I was asking a trainer, she said to me "You know what, women are not treated correctly in fitness." After that statement, I was confused, so I asked why, and she replied by saying, "Because women are treated as little men instead of like females, we (as women) are not meant to be treated like men, we are meant to be treated like women." This conversation had a huge impact on me. I went on to think about all the times, I opened a textbook about men and subconsciously related it to females because that was what society made out. But in reality, women should have their own book, their own specialized medical treatment, and their own seat in the workplace. There isn't one gender, one culture, one belief. To put this in a bigger perspective, to better empower women in society, we must change our mindset about putting women in a restrictive soceity. We must all change how we treat, include, and involve all women's cultures. Embrace the impact that needs to come, and work towards a world that invites the expression women have been fighting for.

When I think of leaders, I think of all the people I look up the to-the champions, the goats of their time, the best of the best. But, what others don't realize is that leaders apply to all aspects of life, not always the good. Leaders can also be the people who influence others to do drugs and have bad behavior. Leaders influence action and the choice of that action makes up the community of people. Just like in school, there are groups and in life, there are more groups. Think of your favorite musician and their followers. Your favorite sport and their idols. These leaders influence the team, the people, the sport. These leaders set precedents. An example of a form of leadership I have done that sticks out to me most recently was when I was nominated to be captain for my high school soccer team. I was joined alongside a senior captain. Through this experience, I was aware of my course of action, my words, and my posture. I was aware of how I approached our coach, the refs, and the spectators. I was aware of my attitude after winning, but most importantly after losing. I learned as a leader that I wanted to be someone who was a mentor to my team, who I could support, and be that person who sets the season. I learned to be humble, to accept the fear but attack it head-on. To accept the outcome as something I can't control, but focus on my actions which I can control. I learned that leaders set precedents for others, and if one has the courage, change is a supplement of what others can take. Change is the domino that changes the path into the culture of that team, the school, and the community. But, I wasn't a perfect leader. Before I knew what leadership was, I imagined one person doing it all, excepting all the credit, being a person that only some people can become. I was wrong. Through my journey of being a leader. I learned most importantly, that leaders make up the whole team. Leaders are every individual person because they set precedent for themselves, their family, their school, the community, and the world. The world is made up of all kinds of leaders. when I was a captain for the soccer team, I learned to share my captain with everyone because, without them, I wouldn't be a captain. I was wrong to think that I was just the captain alongside the senior captain. I was wrong to think I could become a captain by being recognized. Being a leader is the person to be. But in reality, a leader was the person all of us are. One of my favorite quotes that I recite every day from one of my favorite soccer players states "The player you are destined to be, is the player you decide to be." Today I decide to be a leader. Not just any leader, but a leader that I decided to be.

Hello, my name is Madison Benitez. I am planning to be the first generation person in my family to go through the whole college process and I need some financial help. Over the past few years, I have been a part of a medical program that my school offers and I have really enjoyed taking part in it. I plan to continue my passion for medicine into university and I need to be able to support my family and myself along the way. With this scholarship, I will be able to reduce some of my stress and focus on my school work. I hope you would consider me for this scholarship because I plan to change be a leader for not only my community but also for my younger sibling to show that she can go to college too.