Our Lady of the Sacred Heart
Senior? Yes
Elite top 100? Yes
Letters of recommendation: Letter of Recommendation 1, Letter of Recommendation 2
In the spring of 2014, I was completing my seventh grade year at Holy Child School. I had attended Holy Child since preschool, and in fact, spent a great deal of time there even before school began as a younger sibling. It really and truly felt like home.
I am a quiet person by nature, and while I had friends at school, they were kids I had always known and grown up with, I never really had to make an effort to forge friendships. In a small school, especially one like Holy Child, everyone got along by necessity. When you only have 12 students in a class, it is amazing how quickly quirks become acceptable. No one thought it odd that I was quiet, everyone just accepted it as part of me.
That changed one Friday evening. I was devastated to learn that Holy Child would not reopen in the fall. Most of my friends lived in a neighboring district, so I would no longer have the luxury of comfortable friendships at school. In fact, I soon learned, I would enter a new school in August with no friends.
My mother insisted that I volunteer at the parish festival for my new school. To be honest, I wanted no part of it, I did not want to be the awkward new student, but my mother ignored my concerns. I soon found myself in the backseat of her car, driving to Saint Philip
School. I felt sick.
Upon arrival, I was assigned to help two girls that would be my classmates in the fall. Although I am terrible at small talk, volunteering at a festival lends itself well to easy conversation. As the summer passed, I volunteered for a few other events, and lo and behold, I began the first day of school with a handful of new friends.
Those first forays into volunteering gifted me with friendships that I continue to treasure today. It also provided me with confidence in my ability to engage in other volunteer opportunities. By my sophomore year of high school, I felt reading to organize my own charity event, a male “beauty” pageant. The Mr. OLSH pageant has grown each year and raised funds for minorities in the Middle East. Throughout high school, volunteering has permitted me to hone skills such as time management, organizing and planning an event, soliciting prizes from businesses and organizations, and public speaking. Although I remain a reserved person, volunteerism provided so many opportunities to grow, to become a person that acts rather than simply talks.
As I leave high school, I know I will once again need to start over as college begins. While it is always daunting meeting new people, my experience as an eighth grader will lead me to the logical place to discover new friendships, by volunteering my time.