Unseen, Unheard, But Never Forgotten by Ava

Unseen, Unheard, But Never Forgotten by Ava - May 2025 Scholarship Essay

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give—Winston Churchill

If I had unlimited time and money, I would dedicate my efforts to advocating for often-overlooked individuals in our world—those we only recognize when specific situations bring them to our attention.

While what I’ve learned in school through my core classes hasn’t necessarily contributed to my goals, electives like drawing, American Sign Language, and Collaborative Theatre have opened my mind to doorways to creative avenues I wasn’t aware of previously.

The impact I wish to make and the change I want to see will focus on supporting the less fortunate through entertainment, the creative arts, and community engagement. Everyone deserves to experience a moment of reprieve from the debilitation that is often their reality.

Through various techniques of craftwork, scripts, and sensory engaging methods I've learned in my electives, I hope to start a nonprofit organization in the near future—for the blind, deaf, and disabled youth, who've never gotten the experience of fun plays or activities like other children. I want to demonstrate through visually and emotionally engaging projects that they are not merely stereotypes or a category in someone’s charitable efforts, and I want them to have a voice to express their beliefs too through creative ways. They are humans who deserve validation, even if they don’t receive the same accommodations as others, and this can be shown through complexity.

Demonstrating creativity for those less advantaged is a challenging task, but the rewards of our labor, along with what we create and the community we build through fun, will make all the effort worthwhile. Regardless of resources, anyone deserves the opportunity to engage meaningfully, and this non-profit organization is what I will strive for with unlimited dedication.