Habitat for Humanity Service Trips
Although this artifact is not from my college years, it has influenced my life greatly and has grown my passion for service. During high school, I was a part of a service organization. I had the opportunity for three years in a row to attend a spring break trip to New York to work with a Habitat for Humanity and work in the city of New Rochelle. During these three weeks, I had the opportunity to put siding on houses, paint local community centers, participate in demolition, work with members of the community, and partake in a variety of other service activities. During this these weeks I made lasting friendships, made a small impact on a community, and became more aware of some of the problems people living near major cities like New York City face.

This trip gave me a heart for service. I found that I enjoy being actively apart and serving communities. This lead me to continue to participate in service during my time at Ohio State.

ACES Film Project

As I entered The Ohio State University, I chose to be a part of the Advocates for Communities and Education program. In this class I was placed in a group and asked to choose a film that demonstrated the four pillars of our program and present it to the class. The film that my group chose was called “Living on One Dollar”. This documentary showed four men that traveled to a rural town in Guatemala called Peña Blanca. While there, they tried to simulate the poverty the people of the community were facing by living on one dollar a day. The four men showed the hardships that people in severe poverty face and brought awareness to the Peña Blanca community through their film.

From this film project, I saw the problems that many people in the world must face when they live well below the poverty line. This project showed just one problem facing the world in one area. I feel that it is important to continually learn and investigate problems facing the world if I am going to create change.

ACES Film Project