One of the earliest pictures of my childhood shows me in my favorite pink polka dot rain boots and green overalls next to an abundance of tomato plants lined carefully in a greenhouse. I might have been just six years old, a large smile plastered across my face, excited to learn more about these beautiful plants. My lifelong passion for nature and agriculture stems directly from my father’s influence. A Dutch man who immigrated to The United States solely to improve the country’s agricultural systems through the Dutch-mastered greenhouses. Watching my dad pursue his career, I became fascinated with how plants grew, and this obsession only increased as I got older. In my first year of high school, I took my first environmental science class. I immediately transformed my passion for agriculture into a combination with the broader topic of the environment. I began an eco-club at my high school, which solely focused on sustainable agriculture on a small scale. I used the knowledge I had acquired from my father, grew it further with my research, and started my greenhouse on my school’s campus. The greenhouse housed over twenty tomato bushels of varying species, cucumbers, lettuce, and bok choy. The sole purpose of growing this produce on campus was to show my eco club members and other students and faculty how easy it was to sustain yourself and others. It took hours of commitment and teamwork, but by the end, we had a large amount of produce to take home, give to the campus kitchen, and sell to parents and teachers.I would also intern at my father’s greenhouse every summer in high school. This internship focused on agricultural chemistry to understand the relationship between soil nutrients, fertilizers, and plant growth. I would work daily to formulate the fertilizer distributed to the produce through a drip irrigation system. In the spring of 2024, I attended The Island School—a 100-day semester abroad program in my home, The Bahamas. At The Island School, I was appointed to work on the campus farm with farm advisor Josef. Josef would use the shells of native conch as borders for his in-ground plants, a recyclable and resourceful way to build a farm. The manure used for the garden came straight from the campus’ bathroom waste system.Before my experience on Joseph’s farm specifically, I never viewed farming or agriculture as an innovative space. This experience completely changed my understanding of agricultural systems and showed me how easily farms can thrive through symbiotic relationships with their natural environment. Our compost, a mound almost seven feet tall and 143 degrees Fahrenheit inside, crawling with cockroaches and mini insects, came from the heaps and heaps of food waste from the dining hall on campus. My involvement in agriculture and farming has allowed me to see life holistically and deeply understand the importance of preserving and sustainably using our natural resources. I am pursuing my undergraduate degree at the University of Connecticut, majoring in Natural Resources and double minoring in Environmental Studies and Political Science. I aim to apply my education and experience in sustainable agriculture to enforce and develop necessary community-based farming programs that mainly focus on enhancing food sovereignty in small island developing nations like my home, The Bahamas. Food insecurity is an increasing concern as we face this global climate crisis; I hope to help combat this issue as a future environmental lawyer.

The firefighters and EMTs speed past 12-year-old me sitting in my bed, tears streaming down my face uncontrollably, exchanging concerned glances before giving me a sad, sympathetic nod. With trembling fingers, I had been the one to dial 911, my young voice somehow finding the strength to form coherent words. My mother’s boyfriend lays unresponsive on the bathroom floor; he’d overdosed on heroin. His pale, motionless body sprawled across the cold bathroom tiles burned itself into my memory as I rocked myself back and forth, trying desperately to find comfort amid overwhelming despair. It took them three doses of Narcan to bring him back to life, and all I can hear is his screams of anger and thrashing body, rejecting the paramedic’s help. That night, I woke up to my reality of living in a home ravaged by addiction. After countless child protective service visits and family interventions, I was taken from my mother and uprooted from what had become my normal.   Presented with a second chance to live a calm life where my biggest worries were my grades in math or naive middle school drama, I was still struggling with the psychological aftermath of a childhood riddled with addiction. It continues to manifest in various aspects of my daily existence. I’m terrified by the sound of fists knocking on my front door. It sends me into a panic. Could it be my neighbor? Or is it an angry drug dealer looking to be paid? Years of constant lies from my mother have caused me to be untrustworthy, leaving me constantly suspicious of others’ honesty and intentions. I learned early on that vulnerability leads to disappointment; I instinctively conceal my achievements, anxieties, and aspirations—a defensive response to years of being dismissed and ignored. I withdrew into isolation, convinced through years of disappointment and abandonment that self-reliance was my only dependable option.   Riddled with the consequences of my trauma, the path to try to forget them through addiction was never an option for me. The addiction gene in me is strong, and I have vowed to be stronger than it and steer intentionally clear from any drug that I know if I tried, would haunt me for a lifetime. Focused on breaking the cycle, I surround myself with acquaintances with like-minded goals who value their future and education. I find that who you surround yourself with makes or breaks the choices and outcomes of your experiences and the path you move forward. My friends uplift, encourage, and accept my choices to better my future. As a teenager, the allusion to drugs can be tempting through peer pressure and natural curiosity. But a happy, clean, and successful life will always overpower those temptations. I’ve witnessed it firsthand, and I will never make the choice to live through that again. Through my dedication to the environment, I’ve found an escape from trauma and a purpose by implementing my energy into something meaningful. I deeply relate to the environment’s vulnerability to human impact, observing its intricate responses to our interactions and profoundly relating to its resilience. I have decided to continue my education at The University of Connecticut, majoring in Environmental Studies, to take the steps towards a brighter, more fulfilled future for myself while also pursuing something I am deeply passionate about. Addiction may run through my blood, but I will never allow it to take over my life once again. Sobriety and the life that follows it are beautiful and worth much more than anything drugs could ever offer me.

In 2019, when category five hurricane Dorian ravaged my home, the islands of The Bahamas, creating $3 billion in damages and claiming the lives of hundreds, my life changed forever. I witnessed family members fleeing in refuge to the spared capital where I lived while beaches and spaces that had become my sanctuary were left in ruins and now needed me to return the favor. As global surface temperatures continue to skyrocket, so does the intensity of tropical storms that have deadly consequences on small island developing states like The Bahamas. After seeing the impact of Hurricane Dorian, I vowed to take our climate crisis more seriously, live a sustainable lifestyle, and make a small but noteworthy contribution to saving our planet. The United Nations has developed seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which fall under three pillars of sustainability: economic, Social, and Environmental. As an environmentalist, I specifically focus on SDGs 12, Responsible production and consumption, and 14, Life below water, which falls under environmental sustainability. To accomplish my responsible production and consumption goal, I have committed to completely cutting out fast fashion and overconsumption of items like clothing, meat, single-use plastics, and even water. At home, I have encouraged my family to eat meat once a week and replace our once meat-filled diet with seafood or vegetables high in protein. This small but effective change combats our world’s meat production issue and its impact on increasing greenhouse emissions, excessive land use/deterioration, and water supply. I consciously shop second-hand when I need a “new” pair of winter jeans. We as a society have neglected to understand how many gallons of water go into developing and shipping a new pair of jeans while perfect-condition jeans sit in thrift stores. I encouraged my peers at school to garden and shop locally for produce. I accomplished this by advertising local farmers’ markets and becoming president of my school’s Eco Club, where we curated our student garden. I taught them how to prune a tomato, the correct amount of fertilizer, and how to use a drip irrigation system to reduce water waste. After I graduated high school, I took a gap year to tackle SDG number 14, life below water, personally. I began an internship with The Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) to become more knowledgeable on how I could be more sustainable for our oceans. At BREEF, I consistently hosted and attended monthly beach cleanups for civilians to help combat pollution in our oceans. I wrote a proposal to turn North Cat Island, The Bahamas, into a Marine Protected Area, recognizing the importance of preserving biodiversity, facilitating the restoration of overexploited fish populations, and maintaining the holistic well-being of marine environments. Hence, our ocean’s natural ecosystem is more sustainable. With a love for eating lobster, I strictly followed Bahamian fishing seasons, being mindful of our ocean’s fish populations. My commitment to the SDG goals exemplifies how individual actions can align with global initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint by living more sustainably. Minimizing my carbon footprint is important because the action can create a ripple effect, influencing the people around me to be more sustainable and make a true impact in reducing our global emissions. Humans are the drivers of climate change; our processes emit the most greenhouse gasses, affecting our natural planet the most. The more we focus on reducing our carbon footprint, the more time we have to enjoy our planet’s natural wonders and become healthier as a society.

In my adolescence, I struggled to watch my peers pursue their passions, in soccer or gymnastics, while I yearned to be passionate and have the opportunity to pursue anything. But after years of begging, it always came down to what was more important to my mother: spending money on investing in her children’s future/health or heroin. She always picked heroin.  I was determined to carve my path as I grew older, regardless of our financial circumstances. This resilience and determination to overcome personal struggles testify to my character. I found a passion for the environment, relating to the neglect it feels from other humans. Its intricate reactions to our touch—how it thrives and suffers—resonated with me. Through this passion, I launched myself into anything my high school had to offer in environmentalism; soon, I was Eco Club president two years in a row and 2x environmental science student of the year. My ambitions went further than the environment; with an interest in people and problem-solving, I ran for student government and was elected by my peers as student body vice president my senior year. But still, our natural world called me, and I decided I needed more time to learn before attending university. I applied and received a fully funded gap year experience working for The Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation, where I interned at Blue Lagoon Island and Atlantis Resort in The Bahamas. This scholarship also allowed me to attend the prestigious semester school, The Island School, in the spring of 2024. I worked hard to develop my communication, networking, and environmental knowledge to open the best opportunities for my future. Although I excelled in other aspects inside and outside of my high school experience, I was never an extraordinary test taker. Months before the SAT, I spent five days a week studying. Practice tests and YouTube videos explaining quadratic equations became my obsession. With all my studying and motivation to excel past the short straw I had been given, I received a 1200 on the SAT. With this score, I entered my top university of choice, The University of Connecticut. I am attending UConn and double majoring in environmental studies and political science. I plan to use the knowledge I acquire in university to attend law school and become an environmental lawyer. This scholarship would help alleviate the financial burden of my education, which still leaves me struggling to cover $20,000 a year in tuition and fees. While my university covers nearly $40,000 in costs due to my need, it is still insufficient to alleviate the constant stress of paying for my education. I aim to graduate debt-free, with a high GPA and substantial research experience. This scholarship would allow me to focus solely on these goals and set me up for less financial burden.  Despite my struggles, I have goals for a fulfilling future while helping others. My career aspiration of being an environmental lawyer would allow me to advocate for our neglected, underfunded world and marginalized communities most impacted by climate change. I would become a voice for those who most need it: children battling asthma due to air quality and households without access to clean drinking water. I want to make a difference for children like myself who fall under low-income groups, living in locations most at risk of our negativity-changing world; continuing my education and reaching my career goals would allow me to do this adequately.

The orange and white U-Haul, with my mom behind the wheel and her boyfriend in the passenger seat, prowled through the houses of suburban Florida, searching for easy targets. Open garages were raided and robbed of their treasures, and cherished family mementos neatly packed away into brown cardboard boxes. They were desperate, addicted, evicted, and living out of a 15-foot U-Haul, surrounded by both their possessions and their targets. At 13, I felt hopeless, too, Couchsurfing between friends’ homes, searching for stability and warmth. After they robbed three homes, my mom was incarcerated, and I was sent to live with my father—a man I hardly knew—in an unfamiliar country, 345 miles away from everything I had ever known. I was forced to confront the harsh reality that my mother was a prisoner, and I had been sentenced to a year of anguish filled with doubt about my mother’s capabilities and intentions. During my angsty teenage years, when I felt the wisdom of a mother’s presence was essential, I was left blindsided and isolated. I listened to my new friends complain about their mothers—the nagging, the misunderstandings about their social lives, and how often their mothers called and texted them. They wished for a day when their moms wouldn’t bother them. I wanted to be bothered. I yearned for a phone call, to be scolded over a B in English, to be questioned about boys and the usual teenage drama. My father was a great dad, but he couldn’t guide me on what it meant to be a woman. He couldn’t teach me how to use a tampon or how to shave without nicking the small divot on my knees that constantly bled. My life suddenly shifted onto two paths, and I had to choose between left and right. The left path offered the possibility to waste my second chance at life, to drift through my adolescence while filling the void left by my mother’s absence with partying, drugs, and unhealthy relationships. This seemed like the easier choice, free from responsibilities and pressure. Despite knowing this wasn’t the right path, I felt an internal struggle, like something dark tainted my blood. I sensed a pull towards a life of torment and anguish. Perhaps it was my destiny—a life marked by unworthiness. But, if this was the life meant for me, I wouldn’t have been offered this second chance. So, I chose the right path; for the first time, I became the biggest priority. I spent the next five years pursuing a better life. I surrounded myself with acquaintances with like-minded goals who valued their future and education. Those lessons I thought I could only learn from a mother; I could learn from a committed, loving peer or mentor. I found a passion for the environment, relating to the neglect it feels from other humans. It’s intricate reactions to our touch, how it grows and dies daily. Parts of me have grown: my dedication, poise, and courage. Parts of me die: my rage, regrets, and inability to forgive. My mother’s absence didn’t grow a void in my soul because I didn’t allow it to. Her actions never defined me; my blood has never and will never bleed evil and addiction. I am a product of my environment but in the best way possible. I’ve become more hopeful about the outcomes of my life, knowing that if anyone was gonna be there in the end, it would be me, and I am my greatest supporter.