Norwin High School
Senior? Yes
Elite top 100? Yes
Letters of recommendation: Letter of Recommendation 1, Letter of Recommendation 2
To me, my volunteerism is a way to stay connected to the community while helping others. One of my largest volunteer projects was the Monarch Butterfly Garden that I built in my school’s courtyard as a haven for migrating butterflies. I used it to teach both elementary school children and the Life Skills class at my school about the importance of butterflies to the environment. In addition, I worked with the Life Skills class to create paper butterflies to send to Mexico in a symbolic migration project, opening up a pen pal relationship between our school and an elementary school there. I then wrote a book, which I donated to the school, about the organisms that could be found in my garden and how to care for them. I brought home twenty of the caterpillars that I found in my garden so I could witness their metamorphosis and help them survive to become butterflies since they only have a 5% survival rate in the wild. I released them all back into my garden as butterflies so they could use it as a home. Through my project, I was able to meet different business owners and managers throughout the community as I obtained supplies for my garden. I also was fortunate enough that many members of the community turned out on the garden’s construction day to help out.
After teaching my community about the importance of butterflies to the environment I soon saw its impact on them. I found my neighbor, who happened to be one of my main advisers on the construction of the garden, looking through the wild milkweed in his backyard for Monarch caterpillars so he could take them inside to watch their metamorphosis. One of my Girl Scout leaders became so enthusiastic about butterflies that she bought milkweed plants for her home (it is the only type of plant that Monarch caterpillars will eat). My Kindergarten teacher was able to use my book in teaching her class this winter and just recently checked it out of the school’s library for a second time to use with her class. By bringing my community together to learn about butterflies, I have seen many people start becoming more conscientious towards the creatures, looking for them, trying to encourage them to come to their homes, and even teaching others.
My life was greatly impacted by my volunteerism because I learned how to effectively lead a group by focusing on organization and outreach skills. As the leader of the project, I had to contact local business leaders about supplies, my team of volunteers, and Norwin administrators to gain their approval of the project. Through volunteering, I have been able to make lasting connections with people and ensure that at least twenty caterpillars were able to safely turn into butterflies. I will continue this forward into the future by hopefully planting more gardens to help the butterflies battle their habitat destruction and will try to be conscientious of how I treat the environment.