A Silver Lining In The Aftermath Of Storms by Logan

A Silver Lining In The Aftermath Of Storms by Logan - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

One way in which I believe that I have positively impacted my high school is thru my actions regarding my volunteer activities. My home town of Whiteville, NC is very small and rural and is located in the southeastern part of the state. This area has recently been devastated from not one, but two major hurricanes: Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Florence in 2018. Hurricane Matthew hit North Carolina in the fall of 2016 during the beginning of my freshman year of high school and Florence hit in the fall of 2018 during the beginning of my junior year.
For many months after both storms, my immediate family and I spent (virtually) every afternoon and weekend doing voluntarily clean-up. We used chainsaws to cut up and remove many fallen trees from roadways, driveways and yards. We scrubbed mud from the walls and floors of our neighbor's house and frantically tried to dry their house out before mold and mildew set in. My 86 year-old grandmother had had 2 feet of water rush into her home during Hurricane Florence. The stench and amount of debris left from those floodwaters took many months to clean up. Because there was such demand for labor post-storm, my father and I had to sand and stain my grandmother's wooden floors ourselves in order to save them. Numerous elderly neighbors, who did not have the means nor the ability to remove debris, desperately needed help during this time and it was an honor to help them. Growing up on a farm and being used to hard manual work paid off. I recruited many of my friends to also volunteer to help, including my high school baseball team. I felt a sense of duty and moral obligation to help others in my community who were not so lucky. And, I learned that by giving selflessly to others, I would gain ten-fold back in return. I feel my actions and leadership in the aftermath of two hurricanes, help set an example to my peers the importance of volunteering and helping anyone in need. Many times it is during the aftermath of such devastation that the best in people, including myself for example, emerges.