When I was in junior high school, one of my best friends was killed in a car accident. Life seemed so unpredictable and unfair, and it took me years to recover from this tragedy. Now that I am several years older, my friend’s death seems all the sadder because it was so completely preventable. You see, my friend got into a car driven by a 15 year-old who had been drinking. Why would my friend have done this, how could this have happened? I knew that my friend’s family was having problems and that there was lots of fighting going on, that her parents were not home very often. She had been crying out for help for months, but none of the adults were listening.

My goal is to work with underprivileged middle school and high school students. I hope to contribute to society by being one of the adults who listens to young people and helps them be successful and happy in their lives even when it seems nobody else is listening.