The texture, the taste. These are what make up the reasons as to why many love food and narrow it to their favorites. It's truly amazing how food brings us all together with its many different shapes and forms while also expressing such a distinctive and unique sense of one's culture and way of life. As many of those who are also interested in culinary arts, my upbringing of food consisted of Mexican cuisine. To many, this is widely known to be the favorite of many and rightfully so. I was able to smell the sweet woody aroma of cinnamon from the arroz con leche (rice pudding) and feel the light yet warm feeling of the ponche we would often drink during the Christmas season. And as everyone at the Christmas party sits around holding and siping the ponche in hand, we all tell stories, share laughter, and a connection. A comforting and nostalgic feeling. It's something that everyone in the world can relate to when reminiscing about the food they had as a child and how they carry that on throughout their lives. Whether it be cooking for family members, eating food from different restaurants, trying new foods, working in a restaurant, etc. For me, I would like to cook and share the delicacy of Mexican cuisine along with baking pastries from a variety of different cuisines so I could be able to share the joys of tasting such delicious food that sparks a desire to connect and share with others. One high school year, I baked brownies for the first time since I wanted to replicate how my mom would make mexican desserts for her friends because it looked fun. I was very keen on making sure it would be the best beginner brownie recipe I could find. By doing so, I would be able to proudly share the dessert with the people I knew. At first it was only my family and close friends that I had shared with, but then I saw their reactions upon tasting my brownies. They looked happy, content, and pleasured. The same feeling that I got from eating foods that I would try in my childhood, came back only in a different way. Even more so when my friends and family kept asking for more and it made me happy to see them excited for something that I was able to create with my hands and with my joy. That ignited my spark to bake and cook for others in hopes that I would be able to ignite their sparks. Whether it would inspire them to cook for themselves or others, or just to try new foods, or most importantly connect with others. This also ignited my drive to always improve my brownie recipe. To make it taste better than it already was. Thanks to this, whenever I made brownies to bring to school, many people would go around talking about my brownies and I would hear full conversations emerge from what started as a simple talk about brownies to other topics in their lives. I was able to bring groups of people together when they came towards me and stayed around in the sunlight so as to not make a mess in the classrooms and we all had pleasant conversations with each other. This exact scenario is what I believe I will bring again in the future to my community. To spark something meaningful to others through food. It's the one of the vary few things that binds all of humanity.

Giving back to the community is such a great way to connect on a much deeper level to which it is one of the reasons why I enjoy it and I plan to do so in the future as a student and as an adult. I would say that I have given back to my community by attending a new leadership program my school has, during the program we would make a plan on how to help the communities around us and so far we started with the little things like picking up trash at a park and trash around the city. We would also talk to member of our city council to provide our thoughts and ask questions on how they’ll make a better community and what we can do to help. As for me helping out individually I’ll say that I’m someone who is a lending hand whenever anyone needs it. I’ve been like that growing up as I would want to help people in whatever way and I really don’t mind. My peers would often come to me to vent and talk about the things in their lives whether if it’s something as small like an argument with their sibling or something big like going through abuse at home. I had a friend last year who would tell me the things that happened to her in her family life and they weren’t good things to say the least. Without getting into too much detail she wouldn’t be able to eat healthily so I would bring her protein shakes every time I saw her and and some snacks to keep her filled somehow at least. I’ve noticed how she would like to take other people’s things and fidget with them or pick at herself to fidget so I bought her a tiny fidget cube to help her. I really believe that even though they were small things I did for her, really impacted her and even if it didn’t I’m just gallad that it didn’t help her a little bit in that moment. I do believe that all of us need those gestures form someone else in life whether it’s big or small. I’m glad I helped her out and kept her company in some way even though it was a short time. I want to help my community both with physical help (like cleaning up parks or helping with groceries) or with mental and emotional help (like helping them speak out and fend for themselves or just being there as a support system and giving advice.) It’s really great to see other helping and being there for each other in the world. I want to be a part of that on a small but also on a bigger scale and help possibly inspire others to do the same in their own ways. In the future I hope to have my job maybe as a therapist or nutritionist (I’m very big on nutritional health and want to teach others about how it affects them because it really does and it doesn’t seem like there’s any action taken for it) and out side of my job I’ll be able to volunteer for things and possibly advocate for the people. I have dreams for myself and for the people around me.