For as far back as I can remember, back to the days when I would scrawl words with crayons on restaurant napkins, I have been a writer. As I grew older, words flowed from my colored pencils, markers, and pens like birds unable to be contained. During periods of my life when I felt personally silenced, struggling as a low-income student raised by a single parent, my writing gave me space to articulate my deepest thoughts properly through private journaling and escape into wild fantasies through fiction. Throughout my life, my writing and personal narrative have fueled me to participate in a variety of service projects across my community (logging over 200 hours of community service within two years), including assisting at my local homeless shelter, organizing food pantry donations, volunteering at a local community theater, cooking meals at the local Ronald McDonald house, organizing garbage clean up around my community, and providing free debate coaching resources to schools across my community so other students can feel the power of their voice through strong writing. Throughout all these projects, strongly worded letters, well-written arguments, and impactful statements have allowed me to amplify underserved voices, call on leaders to create change, and shout the need for servicing others. My writing is not just a personal tool, but a way I can serve my community. As a current workforce & policy intern at a local non-profit dedicated to funding economic development, job opportunities, and affordable housing possibilities for immigrants and refugees, I have used my writing skills to develop comprehensive plans to allow international medical graduates pathways to practice in the United States, potentially saving millions of lives impacted by health provider shortage areas, and build affordable public housing to ensure every human has a safe place to sleep at night. My writing has reached the ears and minds of notable politicians, bridge builders, and leaders capable of making change. I have found my home in non-profit work and public policy and have felt the impact of my words throughout my Northeast Ohio community. My future goals as a pre-law student have been fueled by my love of writing and research, and I plan on working within the field of humanitarian law and public policy to write legislation directly helping members of my community like me, struggling at the poverty line and needing housing, food, and financial resources. My current position as an undergraduate student double majoring in International Affairs and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies with a minor in English is propelling me to the life of my dreams, a life dedicated to service. Even as a college student, understanding that every small effort can cause a ripple effect and make a huge difference, I have prioritized volunteer experience and community involvement, successfully achieving at least two hours of community service every week. My coursework is both rewarding and educational, allowing me to develop lengthy policy proposals to address localized period poverty and humanitarian legal rights in refugee camps, further inspiring me to continue substantive policy work. At the end of the day, writing itself is not necessarily what I love. What I love is the human impact I feel when my writing properly addresses an issue, articulates my thoughts, and creates change in the world. With the power of my words, I know my voice can shape to future and change the world.

I have probably heard "Here Comes the Sun" by the Beatles at least one thousand times. For the past four years, I have worked at my local grocery store in small-town Canton, Ohio. A store I picked because it was within walking distance from my home and allowed me to save precious gas money has become a place where I have formed a multitude of core memories. With the same twenty songs playing on a loop over and over, I am confident in my ability to recognize "Here Comes the Sun" within just a few notes. Working in customer service has allowed me to interact with many members of my community, from the lady who carries around her pocket-sized Pomeranian in her purse, to the man who became irrationally angry when the green beans were out of stock just last week. No matter what my shift may throw at me, I can always count on the melodic voices of the Beatles being just around the corner. Being a part of the most mundane activity in a person's life, grocery shopping has taught me a lot about the importance of public service. My minimum wage job, which has so far funded my college education, has also instilled in me the virtues of compassion, understanding, and belief that everyone, when given the opportunity, is capable of amazing things. People tend to open up to strangers, especially when they believe that their words will not be remembered. However, I can recollect nearly every impactful story a customer has shared with me during the few moments it takes for me to scan their canned goods. Teachers purchase countless school supplies out of their own pockets for their students, sharing their lack of funding and burnout. Construction workers share their struggles unionizing, hoping for more equally distributed profits as their bodies break down rebuilding the city we both care deeply about. During the pandemic, nurses would share stories of overcrowded waiting rooms and lacking resources, resulting in feelings of helplessness in unprecedented conditions. I have been entrusted with these stories, and whether the customers I have interacted with know it or not, these stories have ignited a fire within me to push for change in the realm of public policy and pursue a career in service to the very people who do so much to keep my local community afloat. When John Lennon promises that the sun is coming around the corner, I believe him. As a current college student pursuing a career in public policy, I can guarantee that my future career aspirations will bring forth ripples of change in my community. Currently pursuing my EMT certification, I plan on being a volunteer ambulance technician, so I can help provide free ambulance care to my community and aid overburdened healthcare providers. As a volunteer debate coach across multiple school districts, I work with teachers and administrators to better understand the systems that prevent proper teacher wage reform. With the end goal of a career in law, I hope to work with unions to help workers achieve maximum rights for the labor they provide. I hope to eventually use these experiences and service projects to catapult a career in government, writing legislation that will not just put a band-aid on these problems, but address the root of the issue. My educational journey will not be used to benefit me, but the thousands of individuals who have opened up about their day-to-day lives. I plan on pressuring the ice to slowly melt away and allow the sun to finally warm my local community.

When I was seven years old, I was convinced I would become the next American Idol. Despite being the most tone-deaf singer, you have ever heard, I sang everywhere I went: in my room, in the bathtub, even when I was dragged out grocery shopping by my mother. With ceaseless passion and never-ending self-assuredness, I began to devote myself to a passion for which I was entirely devoid of talent. Being overly confident in my singing abilities and inspired to tackle the monotony of the day, I begged the cafeteria monitor at Northwood Elementary School to let me sing in front of my entire grade at lunch, and shockingly, she agreed. With hundreds of tiny eyeballs staring back at me, I launched into the first song that popped into my head: “Call Me Maybe” by the pop icon herself, Carly Rae Jepsen. Nevertheless, I put everything into my miniature concert, and although I couldn’t sing, no one who witnessed my recital could say I wasn’t passionate. This passion is what makes me most proud to be an American; the never-ending pursuit of one's goals and ambitions is what it means to live the American dream, and I am blessed to wake up every day in a nation that provides me with the freedom and independence to live my passions. It is this kind of passion that has driven me to a career in law and has propelled me to devote my future to community service. If there is one thing I would change about this great country, it is the access others have to achieving the American dream for themselves. I am receiving my degree in international affairs, with the hopes of pursuing law school after, to ensure that underserved individuals can receive the aid they need on a global scale when fleeing unspeakable circumstances. My daily news is consistently plagued with tragedies faced by people across the world, simply because they were born into unfortunate circumstances. There is nothing that sets me apart from these individuals, except for the blessing I have received as a citizen of the United States. Our country was built by immigrants, and our current economy Northeast Ohio economy requires the additional labor immigrants provide. I plan on becoming an immigration lawyer, to help refugees with the complicated legal process of becoming American citizens. In this way, I hope to provide individuals seeking a good life for themselves with the necessary resources and support that I so need from my community. I want others to experience the beauty of the American Dream for themselves and hope to use my future legal career to do so. Since I was a young child, I have completely devoted myself to my next great passion. As I look into my future, one in which I hope to use my voice to raise and uplift the voices of others, I know that a law career is the best place for me to use my gifts and talents to help my community. My hardworking nature, perseverance, and extroverted nature despite all odds have driven me to success in my past, and I know will continue to aid me in my future. With the continued support of my family, and community, and the generous aid from local scholarships, I know that my voice will be able to change the world.

The greatest muses in my life, my greatest inspirations, are the members of my community. Working part-time at a local grocery store, I see everything. The regulars are my favorite: the man with the mustache that stocks up on milk for his department store before we close, the lady who carries her dog and brags about her son who attends the fancy engineering school, and the greatest comedian the world has ever known in the form of an elderly woman who wears her cardigan off her shoulders. What I notice most is the good in the people that surround me: the retired woman who baked me cookies my first day, the jokes my coworkers share to cheer us all up after hell (tax-free weekend), and the girl who used her allowance to buy candy for her little brother. The fact of the matter is that most people truly want to do good for the world, but they can’t. We face an unprecedented time in our nation’s history. Crippled by the pandemic, and general fatigue regarding the mundanity of life, Americans today face countless struggles; prices continue to soar while wages remain stagnant, healthcare costs are debilitating, college debt is a massive black hole, and the Earth itself is crumbling around us. How can anyone possibly be expected to change the course of history, when the day-to-day struggles are so pressing? In order to change the course of history, money must be removed from American politics. No more should politicians be allowed to take millions in corporate bribes and blatantly advocate against the very constituents they were elected to represent. Without money so entrenched in our political system, honorable leaders would be elected: leaders not sponsored by multinational corporations, pharmaceutical companies, or the fossil fuel industry. We might begin to pave a new path forward, a path where Americans no longer need to worry about their basic necessities, their health care costs, or their fleeting hopes of a brighter future. Once one’s basic needs are accounted for, one has the time to chart his/her own path to the history books. If I was given the power to change the course of history, I would begin right in my community. I would remove money from politics, ensuring that the proper leaders are elected: leaders dedicated to alleviating the struggles of ordinary Americans. I hope to study international relations and pursue a future career in law so that I can develop the knowledge needed to pass legislation that can help people in this great country. So many politicians become involved in government for selfish, monetary reasons, however, I want to become a voice that amplifies the struggles of ordinary Americans in government. I am deeply proud and inspired by the diversity of opinions, cultures, and beliefs in my own community, and I have great aspirations to ensure everyone feels they can share in the American dream. I know I can’t instantly fix the world’s problems with the snap of my fingers, but I know who can: the Korean man who can speak only a few words of English but stops in every Saturday morning for his Twix, the employees who have worked for forty years and only make enough to squeak by, and the woman who dropped twenty candles in aisle seventeen, forcing me to sweep up shards of broken glass with a broom. When we finally take the steps to cultivate a truly equitable society where honorability trumps money, we can preserve an environment where everyone works together to dream of solutions to the world’s biggest problems.