I believe every minority group deserves to have a chance at college, despite the hardships of obtaining the money. My four years of high school included a lot of adversity, with challenges that were out of my control. Despite that, I always strived to push a little harder to be the best I could be. My name is Melany I am a first-generation student from Guatemala who is embarking on the journey my parents would have loved to receive. I saw my parents struggle for so many years of my childhood and I always knew I had to help anyone I could in some way. I started volunteering for local activities at the end of middle school. This includes translating, volunteering at food banks, and other academic activities. Not only am I helping people, but I’m helping myself. To me, there is nothing else that is more beautiful than seeing people's expressions when I help them. I have seen this while translating at hospitals and helping people at churches and food banks. Since I was about ten, I spent a lot of days in the hospital translating for my mother and father. My brothers were in different stages of their life to still accompany our parents. That meant I had to. I grew fond of the people who worked in healthcare for what they did, and because they admired me for using my virtue of being bilingual at such a young age. When my uncle died of stomach cancer, I would volunteer to stay the night with him at the hospice care. I loved being in the hospital, but also the ability to bring comfort to him. I was asked to accompany my cousin when she gave birth because she didn't know English, and I watched a life be born. In these instances of my life, I have seen deaths and new lives, and I believe that despite the hardships, I have loved every second of being able to care for and help another life. If it is one thing I have always wanted, it has been to make fewer people feel the way I did when I had to explain things in a language I couldn't speak. In those moments, I felt something in my heart had to pursue nursing. I had been drawn to it since I was little and my passion for it has only intensified as I grow older. In a society where the ratio of Spanish-speaking nurses compared to patients are at immense odds, why would I not include myself to increase these numbers? If my contribution to the health care field can make at least one person feel at home because they can use their language and be understood, I think I have served part of my purpose.

In my junior year of high school, I became a freshman at my local community college and while still balancing high school. Despite the hardships of balancing both of those worlds, I continued to serve my community with what has been my biggest virtue. That virtue is being bilingual. I used this virtue by helping local food banks when the pandemic broke out, not only would I help get the food set up for the people who needed it, but I served as someone who read the Bible in Spanish to thank God for allowing another day of meals for all the people in need. I gave a piece of myself to the community who required it while the pandemic was going on, knowing I had things on my end that were getting hard. I had the courage to balance all of this while keeping my straight A’s in both high school and college. I plan to continue giving back because not only am I helping people, but I’m helping myself. I think there’s nothing else that is more beautiful than seeing people's expressions when I help them. I have seen this while translating in hospitals and helping people at churches and food banks. If I am awarded the scholarship, I plan to use this in my career, which is nursing. I chose this career because I want to give back to the same people who saved my life as an anemic baby. This career is something that has always brought passion to me since I was very young. With this scholarship, I plan to give back to my community by always helping in their times of hardship and by helping and caring for lives with the career I have selected.

A good leader is said to be someone who gets missions accomplished while also caring, helping, and respecting their subordinates. Leaders are meant to handle the situation even at its worst moments. At the age of sixteen, I knew it was time to take responsibilities into my hands and start working in order to maintain myself. My first job was being a Barista and learning the world of coffee around me. For me, it was a very difficult journey. I had no idea how I was going to learn so much knowledge but eventually, it became muscle memory. After a few months of learning, I received a volunteer opportunity to become a Barista trainer. Since the country was and is currently suffering from short staffing, they needed volunteers that were willing to help without pay. This opportunity showed me that someone believed in my skills and wanted me to teach them to another person. This became a difficult decision where I had to decide if I wanted the responsibility of teaching someone else what I struggled to learn. Eventually, I said yes and became a leader for various new hires at the time. My first trainee became the most memorable person of my working experience. They showed me that I had the potential to pass on my knowledge to someone else successfully. In early 2020, my manager sat me down to talk about a difficult situation he thought I was capable of completing. The pandemic had just begun and there was no telling of how bad it could get. I was given the opportunity to train someone who had just immigrated to this country from Central America. The first days I trained her in person and taught her my knowledge to the best of my ability. After that week, my new trainee tested positive for covid and all she could express was her worries about continuing training because she needed the job and money as soon as possible. No matter to what extent, I called every night to the hospital and explained anything she had questions about to start working as soon as she recovered. Learning new skills is hard, but it becomes harder when a person is experiencing it in a new country with a new language barrier. When I was asked to become a volunteer trainer, I didn’t do it because I felt that I had to do it. I decided to do it because I wanted to lead people with patience and kindness despite the circumstances. No one is born a leader, as humans, we simply learn to eventually climb up to a leadership position. This leadership opportunity granted me the ability to work with people under difficult circumstances and helped me acquire the confidence to lead the people around me.