When I dream of my future self, I see a confident, driven, passionate, and kind leader who won’t let any obstacles get in their way of changing the world for the better.

What matters the most: Embracing your identity or excelling in school? I am gender non-conforming, and my identity has impacted my academic success. I struggled to find a school where I could be myself while receiving a high-quality education. Because of my experience, I work with an organization called Keshet to empower LGBTQ+ Jewish teens. Due to my passion for advocacy and love of nature, I also volunteer for the Jewish Youth Climate Movement while pursuing a degree in environmental science. In college, I will continue to educate the Jewish community about climate change and promote a more accepting mindset toward LGBTQ+ Jewish teens. Throughout my education, I struggled to find a safe space to embrace my identity as an LGBTQ+ Jew. I began my learning in a religious school. After I came out, the administration tried to be supportive, but I still felt stigmatized. I felt forced to choose my mental health over my education. The following year, I switched to a non-Jewish school that lacked academic rigor. There, my gender identity was supported, but I felt like an outcast for being a religious Jew. I still didn't feel like I could be myself. The year after, I switched to a more accepting Jewish school, but it lacked a quality education. Although I finally felt supported in my identity, the school set me up for academic failure. My biggest challenge at college is learning how to study, take notes, and succeed in my classes because, in the past, I was forced to choose between my identity and my education. Because I struggled to find a place where I felt safe being myself, I now volunteer for Keshet, an LGBTQ+ Jewish youth organization. I have worked with Keshet for almost five years to plan several weekend retreats for teens. I ran programs to educate them about the LGBTQ+ community, create a community and safe space for them, and empower them to become leaders in their communities. It was, and still is, my dream that other LGBTQ+ teens never feel out of place at home or school. I am passionate about LGBTQ+ advocacy, but also interested in climate activism. I work as the Co-director of the Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) to run programs, speak at events, and spread the word about the movement through articles, podcasts, and art. I also plan retreats for climate activists to learn and grow as leaders. In college, I am pursuing a degree in environmental science and hope to become a researcher to study the effects of climate change on our planet. My goal in life is to use my experience to empower, educate, and advocate for a better world. I will continue to fulfill these goals, despite my educational hardships, through my work with Keshet, where I empower LGBTQ+ Jewish teens, my volunteering with JYCM, where I advocate for the climate, and in college, where I study environmental science. I will keep growing as a climate activist and an LGBTQ+ advocate and will continue to share my experience and message for a better world. I also plan to pursue an internship at Keshet to make a more impactful difference in the lives of LGBTQ+ Jewish teens. I hope to inspire the Jewish community to take action against climate change and move toward the acceptance of LGBTQ+ teens. I have spent my life advocating for change and inspiring others to do the same. For the rest of my life and career, I will continue to use my experience, education, and passion for advocacy to inspire LGBTQ+ youth and change the world for the better.

As I flip a page of my story and enter the next chapter of my life, a world of possibilities will open up. In college, I can grow my academic career, explore my spirituality, build a social life, pursue my passions, and make friends. However, I can easily overwhelm my mind, body, and spirit, so I will pursue several strategies to care for my health. I will improve my mental health by succeeding academically and thriving socially. I will nourish my soul by finding religious meaning and pursuing creative passions. I will protect my body by eating healthy, staying hydrated, and exercising regularly. My methods will enable me to overcome challenges and take advantage of every opportunity. In college, I must care for my mental health. To do so, I need to succeed academically. I will take breaks while studying and ask for help when I can not understand the material. I often struggle with mathematics, so I will get a tutor to assist me. I must also thrive socially to maintain my mental health. I will attend social events, sign up for clubs to meet others with similar passions, and spend time with people I like. Previously, I struggled to make kind friends, so in college, I will only open my heart to those who open theirs. I will improve my mental health by ensuring I am thriving socially and succeeding academically. While I must have a healthy mind, I must also nourish my soul. To do that, I need to thrive spiritually. I am a religious Jew who often struggles to find meaning in my religious expression. In college, I will explore spiritual expression, attend prayer services, try new rituals, and find a religious community that fits me. I must also pursue my creativity to ensure my soul is healthy. I love to paint, take photos, sing, act, and play guitar. However, I often don't make time to pursue my passions. My soul has felt empty. I will take painting and photography classes, join a theater club, and get a guitar teacher in college. I will pursue my spirituality and my passions to live soulfully. Having a healthy soul is crucial, but I can not do that without building a healthy body. To ensure my physical health, I need to eat nutritious foods. In college, I will go to the salad bar, eat fruit, drink smoothies, and eat a nutrient-filled diet. In the past, I get irritable when I do not sleep enough. In college, I will go to bed every night at ten. To be healthy, I will also stay hydrated. I bought a reusable water bottle with time markers to help me drink regularly. My dorm is adjacent to a gym, so I will run on the treadmill, lift weights, and swim after class daily. I will maintain my physical health by eating healthily, exercising regularly, staying hydrated, and getting sleep. I need to build a healthy mind, body, and soul in college because otherwise, I can not take advantage of the opportunities. In college, I will improve my mental health by succeeding academically and thriving socially. I will nourish my soul by finding religious meaning and pursuing creative passions. I will protect my body by eating healthy, staying hydrated, and exercising regularly. My methods will enable me to build my academic career, find my spirituality, explore my artistic passions, build me physical health, and make good friends. By following my strategies, I will finally blossom into my full self.

As an LGBTQ+ Orthodox Jew, I had a long journey toward self-acceptance. I create artwork to connect with my spirituality, share my coming out story, and encourage viewers to be accepting of others. In my work, I explore my religious and sexual identity through nature's rainbows. I use vibrant colors, Jewish iconography, and nature symbols to portray the strength in embracing my true self, the power in religious expression, and the support nature provided me in my journey. Throughout my life, I struggled to find a space where I can show every facet of my identity, so I create that space with my art. It took me a long time to learn how to accept myself. I hope that by sharing my story I will inspire others to feel comfortable embracing their true selves. With my art, I show the world I am proud to be queer and Jewish and that I will never again be ashamed to show my multifaceted identity. Judaism is an integral part of who I am. Jewish values, culture, and traditions have always been ingrained in my everyday life. When I was younger, I had a strong connection to Judaism. I went to synagogue weekly, attended a Jewish school, and observed every commandment. After I came out, I faced both support and stigma from my Jewish community. It was challenging for me to stay connected to my religion. In my first year of high school, I left the Jewish community and went to a non-Jewish school. I felt uncomfortable praying at my synagogue, and I was planning on giving up my religion until I began praying in the forest. I almost lost my faith in God, but the forest reignited my belief and restored my faith. I began to explore other methods of connecting to my spirituality. I started painting to tell my story, share a message, and send a prayer into the world. I find the process of creating art to be a powerful spiritual experience. When I paint, I turn my emotions into creativity. My tears and laughter turn into colors, my stories into images, and my painting becomes a message. When I finish, I feel at peace with myself and the world. Through my artwork, I finally feel whole. My art shows my desperate dreams, deepest desires, and darkest struggles. When I share my work, I am not showing paint on a canvas. I am exposing my soul to the world. Sharing my art is a vulnerable experience. It is terrifying when strangers look at a piece I made about my life. I worry that they will criticize or dislike it. But I do not make art for other’s enjoyment. I make art to mend my soul, share my story, and heal the world. This scholarship will enable me to continue creating art in college. I will finally have the chance to dedicate myself to creating artwork that inspires change. I will use this money to take art classes, buy painting supplies, grow my artistic skills, build my portfolio, create an art exhibit, and start a business selling my artwork. With this scholarship, I will create artwork that shares my soul, tells my journey, and crafts my message. I will continue to paint so that viewers can learn to support each other, embrace their multifaceted identities, and create a kinder, more vibrant world.

I was ten years old when I fell in love with the sea. I had gone to an aquarium and was intrigued by the exotic creatures. I had a strong desire to study them. I declared, “When I grow up, I will become a Marine Biologist!” My passion for the sea has only grown since, as the ocean has shaped me into who I am today. It taught me to succeed academically, become an activist, and love myself. However, the sea is dying. I want to study marine biology to research how plastic pollution and warming waters impact ocean life, and find a solution. I will use my degree to fix the ocean that supported me. When I was twelve, I was struggling in school when I trained to become a scuba diver. It was months of hard work. At first, I struggled to remember the information, study hard, and get good grades. But whenever I thought of quitting, I remembered my desire to study the ocean, and my dedication returned. Through training for the scuba test, I learned to memorize information, study rigorously, and succeed on exams. After receiving my certification, I excelled in school by using the systems I had learned through studying for my scuba test. While my love of the ocean helped me grow academically, It also taught me to be an advocate for change. After I earned my scuba certification, I went on my first dive. I was excited to see many vibrant creatures, but when I entered the water, all I saw was dead coral. When I resurfaced, I started to cry. The instructor told me the ocean was dying “Because no one in charge wants to heal it.” Before that dive, nothing inspired me to create change, but I decided from that day on that I would become an advocate for the seas. I got involved in beach cleanups, pollution advocacy work, and started a school sustainability project. I am now the co-director of the Jewish Youth Climate Movement where I lead a national organization to fight climate change. By seeing the ocean dying, I learned to become an advocate for a better world. While the sea taught me to be an activist, it also helped me to become confident in myself. As I got older, I realized that I was gay. I struggled to accept myself and was terrified of being judged. I was grappling with my identity when I went on a challenging dive. I swam too slow and lost sight of my group. Then, I looked down and saw a vibrant coral reef. When I got back on the boat, I had an epiphany. On the dive, it was only when I stopped focusing on the group that I saw true beauty. So too, with my sexuality, I needed to stop focusing on how other people would respond and start focusing on becoming my true, beautiful self. That day, I learned from the sea to embrace my identity. The ocean taught me many crucial life skills: To persevere academically, advocate for a better, more sustainable world, and be confident in myself. But the sea is dying, and I must use the skils I learned to save it. This scholarship will enable me to afford to attend college and study marine biology. I will use my degree to research how marine life is affected by climate change and pollution and how we can help. I will dedicate my life to saving the ocean that made me who I am today.

The ocean has shaped me into the person I am today. It taught me to persevere through challenges, become an advocate for change, and love myself. However, the ocean is growing weaker. I want to study oceanic health because I want to save the ocean that saved me. I was ten years old when I began falling in love with the sea. I had gone to an aquarium for the first time and was astounded by the vivid colors and exotic creatures. More than anything, I wanted to go into the ocean and study them. When I got home, I declared to my parents “When I grow up, I’m going to be a Marine Biologist!” My passion for the sea has only grown since. When I was twelve, I trained for months to become a certified SCUBA diver. It was the most challenging test I have ever taken. At first, I struggled to remember the information, swim the underwater tests, and get good grades. I was thinking of giving up, but then I remembered how much I wanted to study the unique creatures in the aquarium, and my dedication to the test returned. Studying for that SCUBA test taught me to memorize information, push my physical limits, and persevere through my struggles. After I passed my test, I went on my first dive. I was excited to see all of the vibrant life and colorful sea creatures, but when I dove into the water, all I saw was the bleached white of dead coral. When I resurfaced from the dive, I started to cry. I asked the dive instructor why the coral was dying, and he answered “Because there is no one in charge who wants to heal it.” I decided from that day on, that I would do everything in my power to advocate for the seas. I got involved in beach cleanups, and pollution advocacy work, and started a school sustainability project. Through seeing the ocean life dying, I was inspired to become an advocate for change. As I got older, and my passion for saving the ocean developed, so did my sexuality. I realized that I did not identify as straight. I struggled to accept myself, and I was terrified that other people would judge me for being different. As I was grappling with my identity, I went on the most challenging dive of my life. I was caught in a strong riptide, struggled to swim, and lost sight of my group. Then, I looked down and saw the most colorful patch of coral I had ever seen. I was too busy focusing on other people, that I didn’t notice the beautiful life I had been swimming over. When I got safely back on the dive boat, I had an epiphany. On the dive, it was only when I stopped focusing on the group that I saw true beauty. So too with my sexuality, I needed to stop focusing on how other people would react, and start focusing on becoming my true, beautiful self. The ocean taught me many important life lessons. It helped me persevere through difficult situations, taught me to advocate for a better, more sustainable world, and to embrace my identity. But the ocean is slowly dying. I want to study oceanic health because I want to save the ocean that taught me to become a better, more genuine person. This scholarship will enable me to afford to go to college, study marine biology, and pursue a career where I work continuously to heal our damaged world.

I am a gender-non-conforming, queer, Orthodox Jew. Due to my multifaceted identity, many people don’t support me. Throughout my life, I have learned to adapt to different communities, schools, and friend groups to find a place where I can be my full, true self. Above all else, I have learned to pride myself on my ability to adapt because it has helped me the most in my difficult journey in life. Being Jewish has always been an integral part of my identity. When I was younger, I went to synagogue weekly, observed the Sabbath, and kept Kosher. I had a different way of living, style of education, and way of dressing. I always wore long skirts, prayed with complete devotion, and studied the Torah with much rigor. I loved being Jewish and expressing my Judaism. When I was young, I learned to thrive and grow and adapt to my Jewish community. I started questioning my sexuality in sixth grade. I knew even then that as an Orthodox Jew, the most self-destructive thing I could do was to defy the norms of my community, so I decided to conceal my feelings. I have always been an honest person, so by the time eighth grade arrived, I was tired of being disingenuous. I came out through my grade group chat, and catastrophe ensued. I lost most of my friends and was no longer invited to events. I spent the weekend home alone feeling like an outcast. I learned to adapt to a lonelier lifestyle. In freshman year, I left my community behind and transferred to a different non-Jewish school. It was a very different environment. There were many topics in school I had never learned before, and the kids all dressed very uniquely. It also had a very strange culture. I found that nobody blinked an eye when I said that I was queer, but I got many weird looks when I mentioned being Jewish. I didn’t eat the non-kosher school lunch but I still ate in the cafeteria with my friends. I missed many days of school because of the Jewish holidays and learned to catch up on schoolwork. I couldn’t hang out with friends on Saturday because of the Sabbath, so I always arranged gatherings on Sundays. In that school, I learned to adapt to a non-Jewish environment while still preserving my Jewish identity. I was really happy that I didn’t have to conceal my sexuality in that school, but I missed my Jewish community. In sophomore year, I switched to a new Jewish school that was uniquely accepting of diversity. I started praying, speaking Hebrew, and studying the Torah again. There, I had to adapt to being back in a Jewish environment. In that more accepting Jewish environment where it was safe for me to be queer, I started getting involved in LGBTQ+ advocacy. I created a GSA in my school and provided a safe space for the queer kids there. I started volunteering with an organization for LGBTQ+ Jews called Keshet where I began running programs and retreats for queer Jewish teens. I now work to create a space where teens feel safe, accepted, and comfortable with their identities. Above all else, I value my ability to adapt the most, as it has helped me the most in my life’s journey and I anticipate it being the key to my future success. I plan for my future to be a strong advocate in the Jewish community for LGBTQ+ acceptance. I hope to be able to teach others to never sacrifice their religious or sexual identity to belong.

I have always had a love for nature. When I was a little kid, I didn’t care about toys, all I wanted was to go outside. I loved hiking through the woods, climbing trees, and swimming in the lake. I enjoyed the natural world innocently, full of blissful ignorance. I was eight years old when I decided to be an ecologist. By middle school, I was volunteering for over 200 hours at the Bergen County Zoo. I loved working with the animals, and learning about how important each species was to the survival of an ecosystem. When I was twelve I wanted to get involved in marine biology. I was intrigued by oceanic life and wondered how that ecosystem differed from the forest. I trained for months to receive my SCUBA certification, but when I went on my first dive, instead of a vibrant underwater world, all I saw was a sea of dead coral. I resurfaced and started to cry. I began to research the effects of climate change and realized that the world was doomed if we, the youth, didn’t start making a difference. During my freshman year of high school, I went to a climate rally. I was surrounded by passionate people holding signs and chanting for a better world. I felt so empowered. I was on the subway when a man shouted at me “Stop wasting your time. You can’t change a thing.” I looked him dead in the eyes and said “Just you wait.” I knew I would dedicate my life to creating a better future. Later that year, I got involved in the Jewish Youth Climate Movement or JYCM. I am currently the co-director of the movement. I oversee all in-person events and virtual programming. I spoke at Hazon’s Tu B'shevat Seder with around three hundred attendees, moderated the Beis Climate Panel for over fifty people, and was interviewed for the Youth Think Climate Magazine and the 2033 Leaders Podcast. I ran over twenty-five virtual and in-person programs and planned two in-person retreats for over two hundred youth activists. My goal is to make climate justice a defining feature of what it means to be Jewish and to empower the next generation of Jewish youth to build a sustainable world. I don’t just want to be an activist, I want to go into a career where I spend every day working to change the world for the better. My goal is the same as it was when I was ten, I will become an ecologist because I love the natural world and I want to save it. It is my hope that if I do my job right, my children will be able to play in the forests, hike through the woods, and swim in lakes with the same blissful joy that I once had.

I have always been inspired by the various fields of environmental science. When I was a little kid, I didn’t care about toys, all I wanted was to go outside. I loved hiking through the woods, climbing trees, and swimming lakes. I explored the natural world with innocent joy. I remember the first time I realilzed our world was dying. I was twelve and I was fascinated by marine biology, so I trained for months to earn my SCUBA certification. I went on my first dive, excited to see the vibrant underwater world, but when I dove underwater, all I saw was dead coral. I resurfaced and started to cry. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how. I tried to learn about different careers that would help create a more sustainable world. As I entered high school, my interest shifted toward eco-friendly farming, and during the summer, I worked as a junior farm educator. I also volunteered for a local nature center and learned about forestry. In later years, I worked as a wilderness survival teacher and as a co-head of nature programming in other camps. In the summer before eleventh grade, I participated in the Drexel Environmental Science Leadership Academy where I worked with a team of specialists to study our forests, learn about ecology, do fieldwork, and create our own ecological study. I fell in love with the intricacies of ecology. I later self-studied the AP environmental science course material, and took the test myself because I was so passionate about it. I got a 4! I remember the first time I had hope for a better world. I was in 9th grade attending the Fridays for the Future Climate March in New York City. I was surrounded for miles by passionate people holding signs and chanting. I felt so empowered. As I was walking back to the subway, a man shouted at me “Stop wasting your time. You can’t change a thing.” I looked him dead in the eyes and said “Just you wait.” I got involved in the Jewish Youth Climate Movement and eventually rose to the position of co-director. I currently oversee all in-person events and virtual programming. I work with over 50 other teens to combat climate change and environmental injustice from a Jewish lens. Our goal is to make climate justice a defining feature of what it means to be Jewish and to empower the next generation of Jewish youth to build a more sustainable planet. I volunteer for JYCM to make a difference in my community and in the world. I believe pursuing climate justice is an intrinsic part of my Jewish identity, as I feel that the natural world is inherently spiritual. I see God's work in the intricate beauty of nature. I find God in the leaves, in the dirt, and in the trees. I can connect to God both among the trees in the forest and with my friends and family in synagogue. I am passionate about climate activism for the same reason I am passionate about environmental science: I care deeply about our planet. I want to study the damage we are inflicting on our world so I can learn how to save it. I want to go into a career where I spend every day working to change the world for the better. It is my hope that if I do my job right, my children will be able to play in the forests, hike through the woods, and swim in lakes with the same innocent joy that I once had.