Dream Small

Youth Forward Scholarship Winter 2018

“Every
individual matters. Every individual has a role to play. Every
individual makes a difference.”

-Jane
Goodall

Kindness
goes a very long way if you think about it. Small gestures of
kindness such as a stranger paying for your order, or holding the
door for you, stick with you and make your day that much better. The
same can be applied to volunteer work, it’s individuals that take the
time out of their day to serve their communities that make a
difference. As an overachiever, this was something I had yet to
learn. I have a big passion for the environment because I believe
helping our planet benefits this generation and future ones. So as a
result, I started my school’s environmental club, “Braves for
Change”. I took the position of the club treasurer and I have
learned so much. There have been challenging times when the other
leaders and I stressed
about certain events our club was hosting and became discouraged
because of the limitations we have been faced with. Since our club is
new, we had to start from scratch, and compared to some more
established clubs at our school, we had fewer resources. Because of
the big plans we wanted to accomplish, this posed an obstacle we had
to overcome, but we did. Our club started a recycling drive at our
school to raise funds for our club while helping the planet, and
after gaining momentum with this we decided to start a pet food drive
for the holidays to donate to our local shelters. Through these
events, we learned to take on new responsibilities such as making
business calls, leading meetings, and commitment. We have put in
countless hours to make these events possible, around 3-5 hours a
week after school to do so. After the success we had with these
drives, we’ve continued to make new goals for us to achieve, some of
them being constructing our school’s first-ever greenhouse, planning
a beach clean-up, and hosting a week-long event at our school in
honor of earth day. These simple achievements have made me very proud
in our club and what we stand for. I hope to see this club continue
at our school for years to come and continue the volunteer work we
have started, it has inspired me to lead an environmentally conscious
lifestyle and I hope to create an organization that will help the
planet in the future. In conclusion, having this dream of a healthy
planet can feel so out of reach at times, reading the multiple
articles of climate change and pollution can feel as if there is
nothing I can do, but the lesson I have learned through my volunteer
work is that small things matter too. That a small club such as
“Braves for Change” can make a difference for our planet,
that massive oceans start from rivers, so dream small.