I am a volunteer tutor at the Children's Literacy Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I have worked with two children in the last year, and I believe that my participation will make a difference in the youth. I have tutored before at my school, but tutoring for the Literacy Center has had a completely different impact on my community and me. I tutored a little six-year-old girl who was extremely behind in her reading education, and could barely read basic words such as 'she,' 'clean,' and 'nice.' Her parents had neglected to support her learning at home, and the only place she learned to read was with me twice a week. After just six tutoring sessions (the summer program was brief that year), she had more confidence in diphthongs and slightly longer passages, and she became very good at sounding out words to figure out what they said. She needs more professional assistance than what I am qualified to provide as a volunteer tutor, but she is a better reader and learner due to the Children's Literacy Center and its resources. The second girl I tutored was eight when she started sessions, and she is one of my biggest inspirations. She wanted to learn to read, and I wanted to help her achieve her goal. On the first day, she told me she had already set goals for herself at home and that her family wants to help her learn to read. I immediately got excited. Over the course of only four months, she was able to read long passages in a brief amount of time, and she can recognize words and sounds with much more accuracy. I also taught her some cursive writing, and she is now capable of confidently writing and reading in cursive, a lost art. Abigail is half Hispanic, so she is learning to read and write in both English and Spanish, and her progress in both is impressive. She is incredibly smart, and her progress and dedication are inspiring. I am so thankful for the opportunity I have had to be able to help her learn new words, diphthongs, sounds, and definitions, and I am excited to watch her continue to grow in her learning endeavors. I look forward to being a part of her growth as she continues to build her confidence and love for learning. In a few months, I will be moving out of state for college, but I will continue to find ways to volunteer in educational organizations. I believe that education is essential in all walks of life, and every child deserves the chance to learn and grow through their learning. I look forward to finding new ways to continue to educate and support the youth, our future, wherever I go, and anytime I see a child struggling in school, I will be the first to help them find a love for learning and teach them whatever they want to know.

I have been playing basketball since I was in the second grade. I was the best player on my team, but then, after COVID-19, my eighth-grade basketball season was horrible. I did not understand the game as I used to, and suddenly, my competition was so much better than me after a year off from basketball. My freshman year, I climbed out of that hole and made it onto the junior varsity team, even after breaking my finger in the first fifteen minutes of tryouts. I was so proud of myself and how far I had come, but the senior on that team, who was also the team captain, did not like me, and she bullied me and made me feel like I could not do anything right or learn to get better at basketball. The summer before my sophomore year, I had finally figured things out. I was playing amazing defense and running great offenses for the junior varsity team at all of our summer camps, but at the final camp, my hip began to give me excruciating pain, so I sat out for the rest of the summer in hopes that it would heal and I could jump back into basketball. By the end of the summer, my hip still hurt too much to run on, so I went to physical therapy. After a few months of therapy, the pain was reduced, but I had developed more strange symptoms, such as violent popping every time I took a step. After speaking to a hip specialist and getting an MRI, I was diagnosed with an SI joint stress reaction, which means my hip bone would break if I overexerted myself. The doctor permitted me to keep playing, but I had missed half of the summer and all of the preseason, and was not ready for the regular season, so I sat on the JV bench and swung down to the C team. My junior year, things got better, and my injuries from my sophomore year had healed. I was in a great place mentally after some struggles at home, and I was given captainship for the junior varsity team. This was my best year of basketball so far. I started in half of the games, I was scoring, and I was taking care of the basketball, and I knew I could play varsity my senior year. At the beginning of the summer, we got a new varsity coach who made me feel like I could accomplish my goals, and I was. Unfortunately, shortly before team camp, I tore my meniscus and needed surgery, and it took me until November after tryouts to come back to basketball, and I was not at full strength until January. Since the season has started, I have worked twice as hard as the rest of my junior varsity teammates, and I was starting in some games, but then I got a concussion and was out for two weeks. That slowed me down, but the last few games I have played have been my best, and I swung up to varsity for my senior night, and I played for half of the game! I held my own, figured out the plays, and scored some baskets! I am honored to say that I am now a varsity player in time for my last chance to play in the playoffs, and I am so glad that I did not let my knee injury stop me from playing one last year of basketball.

My connections puzzle would be based entirely on flowers. It is spring, and I have made a point to fill my home with flowers to brighten the mood and bring life into my house this year! I love the way flowers add a pop of color to the countertop or make the dining room smell better. I do have a pollen sensitivity, but allergy pills exist for people who want to have roses and lilies in their bedroom to color their day and indulge their olfactory senses! My yellow category would be all about yellow flowers. Dandelion, marigold, daffodil, and black-eyed Susan. Yes, black-eyed Susan is more than one word, but I have played many games of connections where a square contains two or three words, or even emojis! I am sure a square with three words would be acceptable in this case as well. Tropical flowers would make up the green category. The squares for this category would be filled by the words: hibiscus, plumeria, bird of paradise, and orchid. My favorite state of the United States is Hawaii, so adding a category for tropical flowers only seems fitting. A little less obvious, the blue category would focus on trees that are known for their flowers. Magnolia, crepe myrtle, dogwood, and redbud. The best part of spring is when all of flowers on the trees bloom and the neighborhood is not just green, but white and pink too! The purple category would be based on Disney princess movies. Nearly every Disney movie I loved as a little girl used a flower as its main symbol or motif. The words in this category would be: rose, cherry blossom, sunflowers, and tulips. The rose represents the motif of limited time in The Beauty and the Beast; as the beast watches the petals slowly fall off the rose, he becomes less human and more monstrous. In Mulan, the new growth of the cherry blossoms in the spring represents Mulan's new growth into the greatest and most feminine Chinese warrior. In Tangled, the sunflower represents the kingdom's love for their lost princess, whose hair is as golden as a sunflower. Tulips in Frozen are a motif surrounding Elsa's new beginnings. This would be a very tricky puzzle to solve. Some words, such as sunflower, can fit into multiple categories! This puzzle would only be able to be solved by the gardeners, but it also gives people who travel to tropical islands or obsess over Disney movies a chance to prove their worth in the New York Times game Connections!