Personal Reflective Essay: Captain Of The Tennis Team

I was raised in Prineville and went to school in the Crook County School District from kindergarten until my senior year. I have loved growing up in this tight knit community where my neighbors are like a second family to me. This community has also been a huge support system for me and my success in my education and athletics. In my athletics I was captain of the basketball team and am currently the captain of the tennis team. I have a huge passion for sports and they have taught me important lessons about perseverance and dedication that I may not have collected through outside experiences. Along with my athletics I have also been a part of student council all four years throughout high school. I started at the bottom of the totem pole as

At Thanksgiving, I led my high school student body, through fundraisers to create nutritional no cost food baskets through the Crook County Coalition for local families, where over 100 baskets were distributed. We spent hours organizing this fundraiser and then personally going to local stores to buy the food to be donated. This project was especially important to me because I knew the work I was putting in, directly impacted a family in my community. I also led a competition between homerooms to raise funds for Christmas gifts for local children affected by hardship. While it is very unfortunate that families have to reach out to the community for their gifts, it is my honor to make their holiday season a little bit brighter with the work that we do. We also work with the American Red Cross, which has resulted in quarterly high school blood drives which netted nearly 1000 pints of blood for the Central Oregon area. Crook County High School has the highest amount of blood donations out of every Central Oregon School. This project is one that physically saves lives and our school’s donations are simply irreplaceable. I was also a part of the Ford Institute Leadership Program, facilitated by Rural Development Initiatives, Inc., it is a nonprofit organization committed to cultivating leaders and catalyzing rural vitality. As a member of the Prineville leadership team, for a community project we decided to raise funds and labor to resurface the 3,000-square-foot skate park for the Crook County Parks and Recreation District. The condition of the original surface, which was more than 25 years old, was a safety hazard for skaters. All of these projects in my portfolio taught me a lesson each and on their