A beautiful, confident, smart woman who my eight-year-old self would look at and think, wow.

Every teenager ever has found themselves bored and in a predicament regarding what they should do to clear themselves out of boredom, and I, a bored teenager, am always seeking to find something that will be both fun and productive. During one of many boring days, I decided that I might as well join a club, luckily enough, I remembered my art teacher and his enthusiasm in trying to get more students to join my school's art club, so I thought I would give it a try since I had nothing better to do at the time. I stayed after school for their first meeting and from there I was hooked. I had always had a passion for art, but I only viewed it as a side hobby and something of less importance, the idea of art being used as something to better my community never really came to mind and since my school was offering an opportunity to take a glance at what that might look like, I took it. At first, I thought that this was a waste of time and that no one truly cares enough about art to take many hours off their day just to make a wall look pretty, looking back though, I realize that I was completely and foolishly wrong. The enjoyment I got when I started volunteering for my art club was fulfilling, it was fun and it was productive which was exactly what I was looking for. I also got to make many new friends and meet many people who I would have never heard about if it wasn't for those many hours I willingly took off my day to volunteer. My idea of volunteering was completely different from reality, I thought that volunteering was extremely tiring for the fact that one doesn't get payed any money for their work, even though that is literally what volunteering is, I never saw the hype for it. I thought only the most selfless of people could volunteer, but that is far from the truth. Anyone, with any sense of compassion can volunteer and enjoy it to its fullest, especially when it is something they already enjoy doing, like art. Volunteering is truly fun and it is extremely helpful in many ways that I never even knew about, the idea of helping others is pleasant and the actual helping is significantly rewarding. Helping my community is something that I will cherish forever, but doing so will always cost time and energy, that's why my goal is to have a career that is all about helping others. I will continuously try my hardest to get to my goal and this scholarship would take me one step further. This will not only support me personally but so many other people who I will be helping in the future and I hope that I continue to have the same opportunities I got while volunteering. I started volunteering solely to keep myself away from boredom, and I will keep volunteering to truly help others and make a difference.