Service

Service has been an important part of my life for a long time. I began to get heavily involved in service in 6^th grade when I joined the YMCA Teen Leaders Club. This club existed to promote service and provide opportunities for young teens to get involved in their community. In 7^th grade, I began to volunteer as an assistant dance teacher at the Y, which I continued to do for 3 years. These early experiences provided me with a strong foundation to grow upon and taught me the value of giving to others.

I have remained involved with the Teen Leaders Club for the past 8 years. For 6 years, I have attended PACAA, a leadership training school held for a week every summer. This week involves the assembly of leaders clubs from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware with the goal of helping teens develop and grow into strong leaders. For the past two years, I have served on the Junior Staff. Becoming a Junior Staff member was one of my greatest accomplishments. In this position, I serve as a mentor and a role model to the many youths that participate in the week and it has given me an amazing opportunity to give back to those teens what the Junior Staff provided for me at a young age. Some of the responsibilities of being on this team involve planning career, leadership, and skills classes, preparing skits, decorating dorms, and being influential role models to the leaders.

My involvement in these types of activities early on has given me a strong commitment to grow upon during my time at Mason. During my first few months at Mason, Hurricane Sandy hit my hometown of New Jersey and had a huge effect on my family and home state. After hearing about the devastation of the storm, I had a strong desire to raise money in order to send back to my home state. I got on Facebook and attempted to get a group of people together to raise money. While this specific initiative did not work out as planned, it connected me with Lisa Snyder, who introduced me to the initiative that the LEAD Office was planning. I got involved with their Hurricane Sandy drive and went on to join the L-TEAM, which catapulted me into the many other service opportunities that I have had at Mason.

One of the program pieces that I worked on during my time as a Leadership Consultant was the 9/11 Day of Service. During this day, I helped organize the photo booth that students, faculty, and staff came to take a picture at with a sign that said “I Will…” The idea was that they were pledging to serve their community in some way. I also went around to each project to document the service that was being done throughout the day. You can see the final project on my media page.

One of the greatest service opportunities I’ve had at Mason was connecting back to my Leaders days at the InCredAble Conference, held at Godwin Middle School. This event was organized by one of my fellow Leadership Consultants, and I was honored to sit on the planning committee and serve throughout the day of the conference. The idea of the day was to empower the young teens that attend Godwin Middle School and help them understand that they can do incredible things. I was able to make connections with students through the many different activities we had throughout the day, and it was an amazing way to develop myself as a leader by being a mentor to them.

I also raised $102 for the St. Jude’s Give Thanks walk in Fredericksburg, VA in honor of Ellie Marie Blaine, a little girl who had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer known as Pineoblastoma. Getting involved in this cause taught me so much about what it means to truly love someone who you may have never met, and to give without expecting anything in return.

Service has showed up in many different ways since I began to get involved. It has meant raising money, supporting others, and generally figuring out how to make the lives’ of others a better place to be.  If there is one thing I can say that I have gotten from all of the times I was able to give, it is a strong sense of compassion for the world around me and a desire to be a better person each and every day.