This semester I had the opportunity to volunteer at the Greater Dover New Philadelphia Food Pantry. The Dover, New Philadelphia area has a large Hispanic population and many people in the area cannot speak English. This food pantry has a hard time providing for these people because of a shortage of translators. I am a Spanish minor and while my Spanish is far from perfect I know enough to help people find the food they need. When I heard that they needed volunteers that knew some Spanish I was eager to help out. It ended up being one of the best volunteering experiences of my life because I got to apply what I was learning in school to helping others. This particular pantry is 2 hours from Columbus in my home town, so volunteering here throughout the semester is difficult. One of my friends informed me of the Clintonville Beechwold Community Resources Center Food, a pantry a short distance from campus. I got the opportunity to volunteer there towards the end of the semester and hope to return next semester.

This event has been held for the past couple years now, and each time the goal is too plant tons of trees. This year we planted thousands of trees along the Olentangey river near OSU campus. The trees we planted will hopefully out compete the invasive species. The process seems to be working because we can see the progress from last year. It was a great event. It was well organized and many people came to help. Before this I would have never imagined so many trees could be planted in one day!

I want to pursue a future career in medicine and therefore have tried to gain as much medical experience as I can to make sure that it is right for me. In doing so, I have shadowed and volunteered at multiple health centers. My local hospital was my favorite place to volunteer. As a student in high school, I volunteered at, and got involved with this hospital. I had the most student volunteer hours and won a scholarship through a program called UH-Tech. The leaders of this program have asked me to return this year to give a speech to the students currently in it. I love my community and I really feel connected to people involved with the hospital. Union hospital is growing and just received a new cutting-edge emergency department. I was happy that I was volunteering during the time of its opening. All this volunteering and involvement helped me to understand that a medical career was a good fit for me.

I attended the American Heart Association’s Heat Walk as a scholars event. The event had an incredible turnout. It felt good to help raise money for heart disease research and awareness. This was really important to me because heart disease is one of the leading causes of death for men and women in the world. I thought it was incredible that so many people showed up to walk the walk and express their support of the American Heart Association. I gained an understanding of the magnitude of caring and supportive people there are from this experience. Before this, I would have never imagined that so many people would go to an event like this. This newfound understanding was confirmed when I attended another event similar to this. This event, Steps for Sarcoma, also had a great turn out and everyone involved were very kind and giving people. Knowing that there are such nice people in the world is really comforting.