School Project Turned Community Success by Abbi

School Project Turned Community Success by Abbi - December 2017 Scholarship Essay

My story of success wasn’t just my success, it was my peers, friends and strangers in my community. I am the president of my high school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes club at Penn High School. I recently had the honor of participating in the Student Hunger Drive of Northern Indiana. It all started when the club and I went a field trip to hear a speaker discuss the Student Hunger drive and something struck me. As the leader of this organization spoke, she said, “One in four children do not know where their next meal will come from.” It made me realize that the area I was living in was struggling. Little did I know that some of the kids I walk past in the hallways were hungry. This realization pushed me to campaign for more donations than we raised in previous years. I am fortunate that I am in a position to help. I want to help make my community a better one, even if it is by donating a few canned goods, it’s a start.
Shortly after I was presented a project. The project was to have the club compete in a Food Drive competition against 16 other schools. With the challenge of being the leader of this, I began to brainstorm of ways to win this competition, for I am very competitive. With such a great cause to compete for, I was more than determined to be successful.
My first decision was to involve the school corporation. Penn Harris Madison School Corporation is one of the largest schools in Northern Indiana. With the help of a teacher, I contacted every principal from every elementary and middle school, along with my high school. I told them of our drive and asked for any help they could give. The amount of support from classes wanting to participate and whole schools wanting to compete in this drive was overwhelming. Schools donated their Halloween Can Drive donations to our cause. Students were bringing in bags full of boxed food and cans everyday. The community was coming together for a common goal and it was truly heart-warming to see.
Over a two month period, FCA, the entire PHM School Corporation and the community raised over 13,000lbs for the Food Bank. I never imagined such an outcome. This project started out small and has now turned into an annual event the community will participate in each year. I am beyond grateful to have been apart of this. Being able to feed the hungry was rewarding in of itself.