Helping Hands by Emma

Helping Hands by Emma - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

My school newspaper is my life. I drive to school before it’s light out for editorial meetings, and I often leave after it’s dark so I can finish up editing and designing pages.

Every holiday season our staff puts out a special edition called the Charity Issue. We feature local charities and spotlight our newspaper’s Helping Hands project. We’ve featured organizations ranging from L’Arche, a French non-profit in our city that houses disabled people, to Annie’s Hope, a charity that provides grief counseling to children who have lost a loved one. The goal of this edition is to bring in money for the various nearby charities and call attention to the less fortunate in our community and at our school so that readers will help in any way they can.

While the charity profiles are the backbone of the edition, Helping Hands is the beating heart. This year, I reached out to our school’s grade-level counselors and principals to request that they provide us, the newspaper, with the name of one student from each grade in need of a helping hand. We assign each student to our trusted reporters. These reporters then go out, interview their students, and have the students invite their families to submit a list of items they need, or would simply like to have, for the holidays. Every story is kept completely anonymous so the students are comfortable being open and asking for whatever they need. We always mask the grade-level and gender of the students we focus on. (I will be using gender-neutral pronouns when I refer to these students.)

Students ask for–and receive–everything imaginable. One of our students had a recent loss in the family and was homeless. They asked for a place to sleep. Another had just wanted toys for their sisters who had none. The student I interviewed my first year of participating in the project spoke with me for an hour about their family struggles and mentioned that usually, they spoke with just one person throughout their whole school day. From then on every time we passed each other in the hallway I would say hello and smile. It wasn’t much, but they beamed back at me whenever we crossed paths.

The community has continually rallied behind these students. We’ve always been able to satisfy the wants and needs of the families to help brighten up their holiday. It is by far my favorite time of the year. I’ve gotten to speak with the bravest and strongest students in our school, and I have had the honor of writing and editing their stories. This year’s edition comes out in two weeks, and I can’t wait to watch everyone come together again to lift up these students and their families.

Leading Helping Hands this year and participating in the Charity Issue the past two years are by far the most positive ways I’ve impacted my high school and its student body. The edition reminds people to give back, and the student body has been an amazing help spreading the word about Helping Hands. I know I’ll bring some version of Helpings Hands to life wherever I attend college next year.

Volunteerism and charity work are two of the most fulfilling virtues in life. Anyone who has participated in either can tell you just that. Everywhere I go in life I plan to do any small projects I can to improve my community and start a ripple effect. It’s cliché, but true; small acts of kindness make the world a better place.