Society believes that genuineness is lost in this world, believing that people only do things for what they can gain from it. The truth is that there are still genuine people who truly care to make a positive impact, and I am one of them. What makes an impact genuinely is not about how you do it, but it is about why you do it. I had always done community service as a kid with my church, but it was not until High school that my mindset changed. I became selfless and wanted to devote my time and energy to helping others. Throughout high school, I always volunteered to help out at events or community service activities. The more I did it, the less it felt like an obligation; I began to enjoy it. Through various events such as food drives, park cleanups, blood drives, and volunteering to help the youth in my community, I met so many different people with different stories. When it came to volunteering, not only was I excited to give back, but I was excited to meet and get to know the people I was helping. It wasn't always about giving them something; sometimes it was about giving them someone to talk to. Communicating with others is my favorite part of volunteering and doing community services because it feels good to be able to help someone mentally as well. Giving them material necessities to support their circumstances is an amazing feeling, but knowing that they feel heard and that they feel loved makes it even better. By being in various locations and meeting various people, it also helped me develop cultural competence. This was beneficial because it made the community services feel more personal. If I were picking food for food drives, I was thinking about what a certain demographic would like, or if they were going to children versus adults. When I would volunteer as a youth coach or mentor, I would have an ambitious attitude because I learned how to interact with different kids and make their experience enjoyable. Cultural competence doesn't just come in handy with making the community service more enjoyable; it is just as helpful when planning service ideas. Knowing specifically what and why a certain group of people is lacking in something makes planning easier. It helps determine where they are located, who the demographic is, and what they are in need of the most. Basic background information about different groups of people makes you always think of them and how you can help them. I plan to make a positive impact by spreading love and person-centered care through volunteering and community service. For me, the act of service is always genuine and comes straight from the heart. I truly enjoy being selfless and giving back to others simply because "acts of service" is my love language. I consider myself to be caring, compassionate, and empathetic; I always think of ways to help people all around me. For me, community services is not about what I gain; showing up to give my energy and time to others is just enough for me. That is why this scholarship resonates with me so deeply. I plan to continue my acts of community services to show the world that there still are people like Destiny, ones who embody compassion, selflessness, and who lead with love, expecting nothing in return but to make a positive impact.

As students, we are the future of the world. What we do now will impact what will happen in the future. The world takes education so seriously because the right education will set us up for success in the future. Many students at this age feel the pressure of knowing they are future doctors, teachers, or politicians. That pressure and stress can take a toll on the student's mental health. As a student myself, mental health is important because it affects all aspects of my life, whether that be in school or outside of school. The class of 2024 had to face one of the hardest events in our educational era, and that is COVID-19. For us covid shut down our 8th grade year, the last year before entering High school. The most “normal” school year for the class of 2024 was our senior year that just ended. Freshman year, we lost our social skills by being online and talking at icons on a computer screen. Sophomore year, we struggled to navigate our “real first year” of high school. Junior year hit hard with prepping for college and various tests, not even giving us a chance to fully recover from freshman year. Throughout those years of high school, we as students developed a lot of mental health disorders that would affect us until graduation. Many of us have developed severe anxiety, depression, or a dramatic decline in our mental health. Mental health is important to me as a student because it is crucial to my success. There were times I had anxiety and that prohibited me from being active in class which would affect how I learned. Even numerous cycles of seasonal depression caused me to have a lack of motivation for anything. Feeling the pressure of the world, instead of taking care of myself I exhibited resilience and strength by trying to fight through my poor mental health, all that did was drain me even more. As a senior I decided to take care of my mental health, in doing so, success became easy; it stopped feeling like a never-ending task and started to become something that I was good at and was enjoying. Being a student, mental health is not just crucial to my academic success, but also to my success socially. As my mental health got better, I became more of a leader in school activities, my social skills got better, and school got easier. To have an impact on the world it starts with being a student. The key to being a successful student is having good mental health. Being a student can be hard at times and can take a toll on mental health. I was able to find ways to overcome my mental health struggles and I wanted to do the same for my community. I advocate for mental health at my school by educating people on the importance of it. I am a varsity sports player and in various clubs, throughout those activities, I support my peers and teammates who are struggling by providing opportunities for them to get better. I provide them with ways to better their mental health and encourage stepping away from little things they might not realize are destroying their mental health. As a student, I will continue to show resilience and strength and advocate for the importance of mental health to us students.

When people hear the word “leaders” they often think of the dominant figure in the forefront of a movement, I was “people”... I was an athlete for most of my life, so my definition of leader has always been based on that. Oftentimes the leader was the biggest, and strongest, they were the best on the team. So, as small as I was, I never would have thought of myself to be the leader I am today. As I grew older I shifted my focus from being “the leader” to exhibiting leadership qualities. I realized that leadership was not just being the “go-to” person for the basketball game, but that leadership comes in many different forms. My early demonstration of leadership was in sports. I realize that the reason the leaders on my team were often the best was because of the qualities that had made them the best. It was not that they were the leader because they were the best, it was that they were the leader because they were the first to show up, they worked the hardest, and they showed the best sportsmanship. By acknowledging that fact it was the qualities rather than the skills, I became more of a leader on my team. In my first year of varsity basketball, I was the leader of my team. I was not the captain or the best, but I was the teammate who could be counted on for anything, on and off the court. In the following years, I became captain of my basketball team for the leadership skills exhibited in the previous years. My leadership was evident beyond that basketball court, and that led me to more leadership roles off the court. In my school community, I was a student ambassador. As an ambassador, I helped freshman students navigate their way through their first year of high school. It started with freshman activities at the beginning of the school year, but as the year continued I always made myself available to provide guidance and help for whatever they needed. My leadership did not just stop at sports and clubs but it continued in the classroom. I was fourteenth in my class of two-hundred seventy-six students. To become that place I would engage often and work well with my classmates, making sure that we excelled together. By having good academics, I was also a role model for other student-athletes in my school trying to balance school and athletics. By being a leader, I demonstrated many good qualities such as being hardworking, kind, supportive, and most importantly in my opinion, genuineness. In all of these leadership opportunities I had described above, at the moment I never realized that I was being a leader. It was not until coaches, staff members, or peers mentioned to me how much of a leader I was that I realized. An important factor to being a good leader is to be genuine, not trying so hard for attention, but just doing the right thing. In the future, I hope to use my genuineness to increase diversity in the healthcare system. I hope to take on many more leadership roles in college that can set me up to be successful in my career. To be successful starts with higher education and being proactive in it. By using the leadership skills I acquired through the years, I will increase diversity in the healthcare systems by helping people of all backgrounds succeed with me.

Only a couple of months ago, many of us high school students had no idea what we wanted to do after graduation. As for me, my future career path changed every year of high school. First, it was an athletic trainer, then it was a physical therapist, and now it is a nurse. Reflecting on the various career paths I considered, one thing they all had in common was helping and taking care of people. As a freshman, I wanted to be an athletic trainer at the professional level, so I could work with professional athletes and with well-known people of the world. I completely skipped over the small communities for people who aren’t celebrities. As I have grown older, I realized I do not want to just confine my mind to helping the people who can easily access health care, I want to help the ones who do not always have easy access. In my community, we do not always struggle, but there are times where sometimes public healthcare is not the best option. My goal is to become a nurse and to help communities similar to mine receive the highest standard of care. I plan to create lasting change by increasing diversity in the healthcare systems in my community. I am a part of a middle-class black community. To this day, black people still face discrimination, and sometimes that can be done in the healthcare system. Unfortunately, many black communities have lost trust in the system that is supposed to care for and protect them, my goal is to help them regain their trust. By becoming an African American Nurse, I can go back to my community and care for members inside of it. It is more important to have representation in the healthcare system than people think. It goes beyond being encouraging to aspiring healthcare professionals; it helps the patient have trust in the one who is caring for them simply because the person who is caring for them looks like them. So, instead of being an ATC for the “Big Leagues”, I can encourage diversity by becoming a nurse and helping the healthcare system in my community. A significant part of achieving this goal is higher education. Going to college will help me gain all the knowledge and social skills to be successful in my future career and achieve my goal of creating lasting change in my community. In the fall I will be attending the University of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. I chose this HBCU because I believe it is the best fit for me and sets me up for the best success. By going to this college I will be around many African American health care professionals who are creating change in their community. In the nursing program at the school, not only do they have great professors, but they have alumni and current students who provide resources and opportunities to graduate and then be successful in their careers. The main reason why attending NC A&T will help me achieve my future goal is because most of the students have the same goal as me to… To create lasting change in our communities and increase diversity in the healthcare system. By being around people with the same goals as me we can work together to change our communities, and then the world.

Growing up I never wanted to be average. I always worked extra hard to be the best in sports, or my academics. I wanted people to know my name. As a child, my goal was for my name to be heard around the world, but at my age now my goal in life is just to have a great impact on the world through my profession. My professional goal is to be a nurse. By being an African American nurse, I hope to help African Americans who have lost their trust in the system that is supposed to protect and care for them, regain their trust. By participating in allied health clubs at my school, I see how the lack of racial diversity in the healthcare system affects people of color. It is causing people of color to be deprived of the highest standard of care that they deserve. My goal in becoming a nurse is to make a positive impact on the ones I care for in hopes that it will spread throughout the community and increase racial diversity in the healthcare system. The way that I will achieve my goals is by getting an outstanding education at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. My academic goals are to excel at the university and get into a good nursing school that will lead me on a path to my profession. I have always been an honor roll student, and my goal is to keep it that way in college so that I can enter the nursing program at the school. My academic goals are vital to achieving my professional goals, it is the foundation of my success. One way that I have been able to be a well-rounded student-athlete was with the help of my community. Communities such as my neighborhood, my school, and my teams have contributed to the development of my character and work ethic which has gotten me to where I am today. With that being said, I have always given back to my community. My community shaped me into a varsity soccer captain, so I give back by coaching little kids’ soccer. As their coach, I strive to shape them into exceptional athletes who will become leaders in the future way beyond their sports. My freshman year of high school was the first year back since COVID-19 shut everything down. I do not think I would have become the student I am today without my supportive school community during my freshman year. During all my years as an underclassman, there have always been mentors, teachers, or coaches who supported me every step of the way. I was blessed with many leadership opportunities within my school that I used to give back to the community that makes up my school. By being a student ambassador and captain of both basketball and soccer, I supported others the same way I was supported as an underclassman. I support them in ways that help them become better students and better people overall. Reflecting on my acts of service to my communities, I see that I made a difference. This has inspired me to keep giving back because it showed that a little can go a long way. Through reflection, I noticed how someone giving back to me has resulted in me giving back to others. I hope through my acts of service that many more people will follow and give back, so much so that the positivity will spread from our communities to the rest of the world.

As a student interested in allied health professions I was a member of the Health Occupations Students of America. In HOSA I represented my school in a regional competition for my state and placed 7th. Although that placement was not enough to make it to the state competition, it was still a huge accomplishment for me. As I lined up with the other competitors that placed, I wasn't focused on being in 7th, I was focused on being the only African American girl up on stage. This was a proud moment for me, in my mind, I was representing the rest of the African American students interested in the allied health profession. Being the only African American girl to place was a bittersweet moment. I started to realize the racial diversity in healthcare, or in other words, the lack thereof. The next Monday, I didn’t just go back to school with a medal, I went with a mission to encourage my peers of color in the HOSA Club. It is important to increase racial diversity in healthcare because representation matters. When people think of representation, they often think of seeing someone like you and it encourages them that they can do it too. Although it is true that seeing a doctor or nurse who looks like you will encourage you to be one too, it also increases the amount of trust you have in the healthcare system. African Americans have dealt with systemic racism and prejudice for hundreds of years, and as a result, many have lost trust in the system that is supposed to take care of them and protect them. By getting treated by someone who is from the same background, it helps the patients have trust in their caretakers. When patients can feel a connection to their caretakers, they can trust that the type of care they receive will not be based on the color of their skin; this is for all people of color. Representation matters because it builds a comfortable environment for the patients being treated, that is why it is important to increase diversity in the healthcare system. With an increase in diversity, everyone will feel that they are taken care of. My goal for my medical career is to create a safe environment and help people of color put their trust in the healthcare system again. By doing so I also want to encourage young aspiring African Americans to go into the allied health professions. I have chosen to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University because I feel that the school sets me up for success in a nursing career.