Prompt 1: Please share a volunteer experience and its impact on your life.

 

To lend a hand, to help those in need, it brings us together and defines humanity. I began volunteering during middle school, embarrassingly not by choice, but by the strong persuasion of my parents. They were refugees once and experienced many devastating situations, but there was always someone to help; always someone to pull them up when they were drowning in difficult misfortunes. I have volunteered hundreds of hours and in a number of different organizations, programs and activities. From shelving books and assisting with summer reading programs for kids to food drives and packing food for mass distribution to the hungry, it seems easy to see how it has helped others, but in actuality, I feel it has had a larger impact on the person I am today - my values, my beliefs and finding my passion in the medical field. It was through these volunteering experiences that led to the Achieving Continued Excellence and Success (ACES) organization I initiated at my high school and for which I am most proud of.

Despite countless hours of volunteer work, I felt that it had not even made a dent. Those needing help overwhelmed what I could ever do as one individual - be it the depth or breadth of service. You often hear people saying, "every little bit helps" and you continue doing what you can, but in my mind, to truly help those in need, you must stop and ask yourself whether what you are doing is all that you can do, given your restraints - time, money or whatever else. This is what I asked myself, which led me to explore areas and ways that could make a large impact while not necessarily requiring enormous resources. 

I read a number of magazines, books and news articles and came across a number of very fascinating ideas that detailed seemingly small actions having tremendous impact to those in need such as microcredit. However, what was most influential was a New York Times article titled "Raising the World's I.Q." by Nicholas Kristof. In it, he elaborates on how the media splashes and glamorizes exotic and expensive forms of aid while a simple, cost effective and even mundane way of helping people was being largely ignored - iodized salt. Iodine is a micronutrient in that it is an essential, however, in only a very small quantity. Its consumption can prevent mental retardation in geographic regions where iodine is not readily available such as Africa and Asia. To put things into perspective, billions of people suffer from iodine deficiency while the cost of iodine for one person for one year is less than a penny.

I remember thinking to myself, "What was it that I could use to help others, and how could it be transformed into something to help as many people as possible?" Academically, my performance in high school had been strong; my G.P.A was near perfect, I was ranked in the top 1% of my class while leading a number of organizations and volunteering/coordinating various community service campaigns and activities. The summation of what I had, the impact I wanted to make, and the need for such change, resulted in the formation of ACES. 

In the last 50 years, education has undeniably been shown to be one of the most critical factors in improving the quality of living. It can be seen from countless individuals who, from nothing, became success stories to whole countries such as China and India. However, the United States spends more money on education than any other country in the world, yet the investment results in scores near the bottom in all subject areas from high school students when compared to other industrialized nations. As with healthcare, we are learning parallels with education in terms of spending - more does not necessarily equal better. 

I had noticed that many of my peers were on an uneven learning field. Some had private tutors, after school programs or highly educated parents and mentors while others were barely getting by, often sleeping in class, skipping class or even school altogether. The idea behind ACES was through my strong belief that given the knowledge and tools, nearly ANYONE could succeed with hard work. It did not necessitate an innate ability to be "smart" or wealth. I believe this because I come from a low income family. My parents did not attend high school or are even able to speak and understand English effectively. Because of my background and successes, I was in a unique position in which others could take note: that it was possible to be successful despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. My idea was to share what I knew from research, experience, and talking to other successful students in the past and present. 

With its goal to assist students to achieve their academic objectives and instill a sense of necessity in volunteerism and service, ACES would be a way to give information to those who sought it. I envisioned a cascading effect in which ACES would aid countless individuals who could go on with the big ambition, dreams and ideas to change the world for the better.

As of now, ACES is still in its infant stages. I, alone, have poured in countless hours in preparation over the past year - formulating the organization's foundation (constitution, bylaws, officer selection, documentation, etc.), developing ideas and resources through my past work, work of other successful students in the past and present, as well as looking into education strategies. This has resulted in numerous databases and programs involving scholarships, internships, college information, mentoring, and tutoring, just to name a few. While it can be argued that ACES has not made the huge immediate impact as I had hoped, it is still very, very young; we have only had less than one semester of operation. My hope is that word of ACES will continue to spread and make the difference I had envisioned. It would show that hard work and dedication to helping others is well worth the work, time and effort.