I have always loved working with kids, so teaching seemed to be the best fit for me. One of the biggest reasons I have chosen to pursue teaching was Girl Scouts. I did Girl Scouts part of elementary school all through middle and high school, and my junior and senior years of high school I was given the opportunity to be the leader of the youngest group of girls- the Daisys. Those two years I got to spend with those girls really showed me my path in life, I had always thought about becoming a teacher but my time with them really solidified that choice- especially my decision to teach kindergarten/first grade! My time with them was unforgettable and I am so glad they helped me realize what I wanted to do with my life- helping kids their age grow was so impactful on me and really showed me just how impressionable one person can be on a child's life. Anytime I visit home I try to go see the girls at their meetings in their groups now and we have continued to grow our relationships, and I always look forward to getting to see them again. Looking back on my time with the Daisies, I am incredibly grateful for the guidance they unknowingly gave me. I learned many lessons, not only about the kids and teaching, but about myself. I learned how to be patient, compassionate, kind, and most importantly- how to form relationships with younger grade students. These are just a few of the skills it takes to be a teacher, but I hope throughout the rest of my education (and the more time I get to go back and work with the girls) I learn more and more skills I will need to be a successful teacher. The leadership I got to practice with those girls gave me so many skills that I will be able to use in my classroom in the future. It was the perfect opportunity to practice in a real setting with children who looked up to me so much. All in all, my love for children and helping people and all of my time with the Daisies in Girl Scouts really drove me on my path to become a teacher and, frankly, continues to drive me as I cannot wait to get in a classroom and continue shaping young minds as I did those little girls.

I am an Elementary Education and Teaching major at Longwood University and I am striving to become a second grade teacher. My biggest goal is to be able to make as much of an impact on my future students as my elementary school teachers did on me! This scholarship will help me a great deal as I am paying for college on my own and am about to start student teaching so I don’t have very much time outside of that to be working. One of the biggest impacts I feel I’ve made on my community was when I did a huge project for Girl Scouts a few years ago, we completely redid numerous parts of a summer camp. We cleaned and repainted their basketball courts, as well as painting some outdoor games on the asphalt and raised money to buy all new equipment to have at the basketball court and section of asphalt. I also helped to clean up and repaint and repair some of the cabins at the summer camp as well. In addition, I helped a great deal in building a new fence at an outlook on one of the trails. The original fence was unsafe and completely falling apart and kids would have been easily able to go through or around it and hurt themselves. Building the new fence, to me, was by far the most important thing and probably had the biggest impact on the community as more than just the summer camp used that trail. This all has had a huge impact on me even today as I have come to appreciate the little things, for myself and for others, and always be grateful for those who are working on helping the community become better. Girl Scouts as a whole has made me so much of a better person and much more appreciative for, frankly, everything in life. It has also given me tons of opportunities to help out my community in numerous ways as that summer camp project was not the only one I helped with and surely was not the last. Even today, even though I have aged out, I still go back to my old troop all the time to help out with big projects and even just events at the church when they need. Helping out my community is such a fulfilling experience and I strive everyday to help people out anyway I can. Girl Scouts overall made me a better person and I continue to use the skills that I learned throughout my time to better myself, my family, my friends, and my community.

I am an Elementary Education and Teaching major at Longwood University, and I am striving to become a first-grade teacher. My biggest goal is to be able to make as much of an impact on my future students as my elementary school teachers did on me! I have always loved working with kids, so teaching seemed to be the best fit for me. One of the biggest reasons I have chosen to pursue teaching was Girl Scouts. I did Girl Scouts part of elementary school all through middle and high school, and my junior and senior years of high school I was given the opportunity to help "lead" the youngest group of girls- the Daisys. Those two years I got to spend with those girls really showed me my path in life, I had always thought about becoming a teacher but my time with them really solidified that choice- especially my decision to teach kindergarten/first grade! My time with them was unforgettable and I am so glad they helped me realize what I wanted to do with my life- helping kids their age grow was so impactful on me and really showed me just how impressionable one person can be on a child's life. Anytime I visit home I try to go see the girls at their meetings in their groups now and we have continued to grow our relationships, and I always look forward to getting to see them again. Looking back on my time with the Daisies, I am incredibly grateful for the guidance they unknowingly gave me. I learned many lessons, not only about the kids and teaching, but about myself. I learned how to be patient, compassionate, kind, and most importantly- how to form relationships with younger grade students. These are just a few of the skills it takes to be a teacher, but I hope throughout the rest of my education (and the more time I get to go back and work with the girls) I learn more and more skills I will need to be a successful teacher. All in all, my love for children and helping people and all of my time with the Daisies in Girl Scouts really drove me on my path to become a teacher and, frankly, continues to drive me as I cannot wait to get in a classroom and continue shaping young minds as I did those little girls.

I am an Elementary Education and Teaching major at Longwood University, and I am striving to become a first-grade teacher. My biggest goal is to be able to make as much of an impact on my future students as my elementary school teachers did on me! I have always loved working with kids, so teaching seemed to be the best fit for me. One of the biggest reasons I have chosen to pursue teaching was Girl Scouts. I did Girl Scouts part of elementary school all through middle and high school, and my junior and senior years of high school I was given the opportunity to help "lead" the youngest group of girls- the Daisys. Those two years I got to spend with those girls really showed me my path in life, I had always thought about becoming a teacher but my time with them really solidified that choice- especially my decision to teach kindergarten/first grade! My time with them was unforgettable and I am so glad they helped me realize what I wanted to do with my life- helping kids their age grow was so impactful on me and really showed me just how impressionable one person can be on a child's life. Anytime I visit home I try to go see the girls at their meetings in their groups now and we have continued to grow our relationships, and I always look forward to getting to see them again. Looking back on my time with the Daisies, I am incredibly grateful for the guidance they unknowingly gave me. I learned many lessons, not only about the kids and teaching, but about myself. I learned how to be patient, compassionate, kind, and most importantly- how to form relationships with younger grade students. These are just a few of the skills it takes to be a teacher, but I hope throughout the rest of my education (and the more time I get to go back and work with the girls) I learn more and more skills I will need to be a successful teacher. All in all, my love for children and helping people and all of my time with the Daisies in Girl Scouts really drove me on my path to become a teacher and, frankly, continues to drive me as I cannot wait to get in a classroom and continue shaping young minds as I did those little girls.

I am an Elementary Education and Teaching major at Longwood University, and I am striving to become a first-grade teacher. My biggest goal is to be able to make as much of an impact on my future students as my elementary school teachers did on me! I have always loved working with kids, so teaching seemed to be the best fit for me. One of the biggest reasons I have chosen to pursue teaching was Girl Scouts. I did Girl Scouts part of elementary school all through middle and high school, and my junior and senior years of high school I was given the opportunity to help "lead" the youngest group of girls- the Daisys. Those two years I got to spend with those girls really showed me my path in life, I had always thought about becoming a teacher but my time with them really solidified that choice- especially my decision to teach kindergarten/first grade! My time with them was unforgettable and I am so glad they helped me realize what I wanted to do with my life- helping kids their age grow was so impactful on me and really showed me just how impressionable one person can be on a child's life. Anytime I visit home I try to go see the girls at their meetings in their groups now and we have continued to grow our relationships, and I always look forward to getting to see them again. Looking back on my time with the Daisies, I am incredibly grateful for the guidance they unknowingly gave me. I learned many lessons, not only about the kids and teaching, but about myself. I learned how to be patient, compassionate, kind, and most importantly- how to form relationships with younger grade students. These are just a few of the skills it takes to be a teacher, but I hope throughout the rest of my education (and the more time I get to go back and work with the girls) I learn more and more skills I will need to be a successful teacher. All in all, my love for children and helping people and all of my time with the Daisies in Girl Scouts really drove me on my path to become a teacher and, frankly, continues to drive me as I cannot wait to get in a classroom and continue shaping young minds as I did those little girls.

I am an Elementary Education and Teaching major at Longwood University and I am striving to become a second grade teacher. My biggest goal is to be able to make as much of an impact on my future students as my elementary school teachers did on me! This scholarship will help me a great deal as I am paying for college on my own and am about to start student teaching so I don’t have very much time outside of that to be working. One of the biggest impacts I feel I’ve made on my community was when I did a huge project for Girl Scouts a few years ago, we completely redid numerous parts of a summer camp. We cleaned and repainted their basketball courts, as well as painting some outdoor games on the asphalt and raised money to buy all new equipment to have at the basketball court and section of asphalt. I also helped to clean up and repaint and repair some of the cabins at the summer camp as well. In addition, I helped a great deal in building a new fence at an outlook on one of the trails. The original fence was unsafe and completely falling apart and kids would have been easily able to go through or around it and hurt themselves. Building the new fence, to me, was by far the most important thing and probably had the biggest impact on the community as more than just the summer camp used that trail. This all has had a huge impact on me even today as I have come to appreciate the little things, for myself and for others, and always be grateful for those who are working on helping the community become better. Girl Scouts as a whole has made me so much of a better person and much more appreciative for, frankly, everything in life. It has also given me tons of opportunities to help out my community in numerous ways as that summer camp project was not the only one I helped with and surely was not the last. Even today, even though I have aged out, I still go back to my old troop all the time to help out with big projects and even just events at the church when they need. Helping out my community is such a fulfilling experience and I strive everyday to help people out anyway I can.

As a gifted student myself, I understand the importance of the social-emotional well-being of these children. Their needs are often overlooked as they are just thrown into the "Oh they are just smart," category. But that is not the case at all. Gifted children are often more emotional and therefore need not necessarily more, but rather a different kind of attention. By becoming an elementary school teacher I hope to help recognize these characteristics of gifted children sooner rather than later so that their needs can be met. And so their needs can continue to be met for as long as they are in school. I was recognized as gifted in kindergarten, which truly was a blessing as these differing needs that I had were able to be met quickly thanks to my teachers that saw the way that I was acting socially and emotionally. As far as gifted children's intellectual needs go, I believe that is a completely different ballgame as every student excels in something different. Just because one gifted student is an amazing reader does not mean they all are, another student may be going above and beyond in math. Stressing that everyone has different abilities is so incredibly important because you can not expect the same thing from every student. As a teacher, and hopefully one day a gifted teacher, I will make it a priority to give students, gifted or not even, resources to work on things that they thrive doing. I want all of my students to have the opportunity to learn more about the things that they want to learn about rather than just what I am teaching. By giving everyone these opportunities it will also help make the gifted students not feel so singled out. The gifted program at my elementary school made all of us feel very put on the spot, and not many teachers understood how to handle our feelings and social, emotional, and intellectual needs which in turn made it very hard for me to thrive. I always felt I was too different and was only ever friends with other kids in the program and kept to myself really up until high school when I was able to take "normal" classes and do the things I wanted. I never ever want a child to feel alone or that they can only be friends with other gifted kids. Now while I do think it is important for them to have close relationships with others who are in the same boat as them, I also think that it is just as important for them to be acquainted with the real world so that they do not have these unworldly expectations about what real-life is like. Becoming a teacher has always been my dream, and being able to help kids who are like me is just the cherry on top and I can not wait to be able to help these children thrive and receive the help and support they need.