My name is Peyton Descheny, I am a student at Fort Lewis College majoring in Sports Administration. I come from an Apache reservation in Arizona where alcoholism, drug addiction, diabetes, obesity, and gang violence are the main epidemics of our community. Alcoholism, drug addiction, and gang violence affect our youth demographic the most while diabetes and obesity affect our adult and elder demographic. Our community provides little to nothing when it comes to extracurricular activities, sports clubs, and events that are targeted toward our youth. My plan for giving back to my community started with finding the root of where our community was collapsing which was our youth. The action I want to take is to provide my community with an organized system that creates and connects sports clubs, organizations, and our community through planned sports events, tournaments, the creation of clubs, and building facilities that our community can utilize to their advantage. Examples of facilities I want to find funding for are a recreation center and multi-purpose fields that target the sports our youth is most interested in which would be basketball, skateboarding, rock-climbing, weight lifting, cross-country, track and field, baseball, and softball. My plan also involves working with the public health organization that operates on our reservation to combat obesity and diabetes within our community. My ambition and calling stems from previous community service opportunities that I participated in throughout my high school and college years. My first community service act was helping a middle school in Juarez, Mexico with building a housing unit for the teachers who were living in the basement of the school. The trip took place in March of 2020 which was the same time that Covid-19 was starting to spread, causing the world to go into isolation. The group I went with arrived a week before the border of Mexico was closed down and no one was allowed to cross the border. We barely made it back into the U.S. with only a few hours left to cross the border. This trip gave me perspective on what a community is and how people can contribute to a community even with just the smallest acts. We built the facility with cement blocks, concrete that we made ourselves, and with the help of an instructor who had many years of construction experience. I would continue going back to this school every year up until 2022 to provide my assistance with building this housing unit for the teachers to live in. Every time I go back the smiles of the teachers, children, and owners of the school remind me what community service means to me. Community service is more than just the act of assisting a group, organization, or individual through physical labor, emotional support, or a huge act of kindness. It is providing hope, stability, comfort, trust, resilience, inspiration, and love to a community and ensuring that society knows that at least one person is willing to commit their entire self to the emotional and physical economic aspects of that society. A community needs only one person to make a difference that will impact the community for the better. From that one person inspiration and motivation within others can be created and a domino effect can occur. My grandma was that person for me because she not only gave back to her community but she gave back to many other Native American communities through her job as a housing/project coordinator. Now I want to be that person for someone else and I want to give back to the community she and I love.