“I am driven by my passionate beliefs in family, happiness, and integrity. I pursue these passions by utilizing my core strengths of being restorative, a learner, and an achiever. I plan to live out these values through opportunities where I am focusing and strategizing to achieve innovation and unity that impacts families and communities. To do so, I will seek opportunities to improve the process of change and develop new partnerships. When I face challenges or obstacles along the way, I will remember to keep things in perspective and maintain a hopeful outlook.”

My Global Citizen Scholar mission revolves around families and betterment of the community as a whole. I am a firm believer that service is one of the most fulfilling actions a person can take, and it is the best way to take direct action to better a community. It is because of this belief that I want to focus on service opportunities when fulfilling my Global Citizen Scholar mission. Changing the world is a feat that can only be accomplished through the unity of many people, but changing my world, the part of the world I see every day, can be accomplished by only one.

Service has been a large part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have attended Catholic schools up until I came to the University of Cincinnati, and my religion, my family and my school experience have always taught me the values of compassion and service to others. To accomplish my Global Citizen Scholar mission, I plan to first focus on service opportunities that relate to my beliefs and strengths. Earlier this year I became involved with volunteering with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and their fundraising events. The people there are wonderful, and their work is incredible. I plan on continuing my involvement with their organization as their goal fits exactly with my mission, to use innovation in order to help families who need it. The work I do with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation provides funding for research and treatments that will improve the quality of life of people who live with this disease.

I consider service to be a wonderful opportunity, no matter what you are doing during the service itself. Doing service for others means that you can try new things under the supervision of the coordinator, of someone who has done this work before and can answer any questions you may have. I plan to utilize resources such as the University’s service website as well as my own connections from previous service opportunities to help me to make progress towards my mission. Additionally, I plan on continuing my work as a member of the Cincinnati Donauschwaben as a volunteer and performer (see the About Me page). By continuing to work with the organizations I have already worked with and expanding my work with other organizations, I can continue to work towards accomplishing my Global Citizen Scholar mission, with the support of my family, of course.

My goal is to increase the amount of service I do each year by at least five hours. I want to find new, and different, opportunities to serve the families in my community. I want to make a difference in people’s lives, to engineer new ways to help the most people. In order to accomplish my main goal of fulfilling my Global Citizen Scholar mission statement, I must undertake and accomplish a series of smaller goals first. Many of these goals will be naturally attained simply by completing service, and many other goals will be written as I am continuing to live out my mission. However fluid my goals may be, I know that all of them will be imperative in my quest for innovation and change that is beneficial to my community and to the world at large.

Reflection will be a major part of this journey. It is important to reflect on the actions you take in order to ensure that these actions will lead you on the right path towards a goal. You have to ask yourself what you are doing and what you are working to accomplish. Just as outlines are made before an essay can be written, without a clearly defined process to work towards a goal it is very difficult to drive any of the change you are wanting to make. Change is at the forefront of every goal a person can have, no matter how small. You can be changing only your own life, or your actions can impact an entire community, but either way it is necessary to know what the entire situation is. After knowing the “what’s” of a mission, it is even more vital that you know why you are doing this. What is going to be accomplished through your actions? You have done something that you think will be beneficial to others, but so what? What is the significance? The final part of any reflection should be about what will happen next. Understanding the impacts made by your actions means you know whether they were truly beneficial and if you should continue to follow the path you are on. Reflection allows a person to fully understand the extent of their impacts on their community, and it is an essential part of any set process.

By utilizing the reflective process and following my own belief in the value of service, I am confident that I will be able to live out my mission as a Global Citizen Scholar. And even if I stumble and fall, I know that my family and friends will be there to help me brush off my knees so I can get back up and go change my world.