Community Matters More by Claire

Community Matters More by Claire - September 2019 Scholarship Essay

If I had the opportunity to create a high school extracurricular activity, the activity would be a club that is designed specifically for teenagers that feel lonely or isolated. Clubs, whatever club it may be, have a common interest that people can relate to and come together. My club would be for teenagers that feel that they are not part of their high school community socially. My club would not disregard anyone because they “didn’t fit the parameters”; the main purpose of my club is to go through high school knowing that you have at least one friend.
I came from a very small, private elementary-middle school; I had known the same fourteen people from fifth grade to eighth grade. Going from a class of fourteen to a class of five hundred was a very big change for me. The people that I had grown used to having around me daily were all going to separate high schools, none of us knowing if we would keep in touch or just have memories of each other. The only other person that also was going to the same high school as myself was a boy that for the past four years we had barely spoken twenty words to each other. It was difficult for all of us to be leaving each other and going our separate ways in life; some of my old classmates had known each other since they were five years old.
Starting high school, knowing only one person who didn’t acknowledge my existence, was a difficult time. Every time I stepped into a classroom, I was being constantly reminded that almost of these kids had grown up with each other and had gone to the same schools for years. Other people were nice to me and some offered to have me sit with them at lunch. I declined after a while because I would sit with them and I would feel like an intruder, bursting in on their group that they had established since elementary school. So then I would find a teacher that didn’t that I would sit in their class at lunch.
That is how the first two years of high school went for me. There were a few times I had a “group” of people but even then after a while, everybody would leave because they had “better” friends. It wasn’t until junior year that I noticed that I didn’t have a group of people that I could call my own and constantly be doing activities with. I truly realized then how alone I was in the high school world. I had joined a couple of clubs that year to see if I could meet people that were similar to me but in those clubs, there were already separate groups of people.
I would create this extracurricular activity because I don’t want future high school students to have to go through what I went through. No person should ever feel as though they are unwanted, unloved, or undesirable. There are clubs for adults that feel lonely or isolated; teenagers should have the same activities available to them also. My club would give any high school student the chance to meet other people, make a connection, and feel as though they are a part of something.