My Life's Calling by Paula

My Life's Calling by Paula - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

Life is short. It is a saying that we hear over and over again, but does it actually mean anything? For children all across the world, hunger is inevitable. Whether it be their family wealth or their geographic location, hunger has become a part of their daily lives. Moving from Jersey City, one of the most urban places in northern New Jersey, to Westfield, an affluent suburban town, made me see all the blessings I have been given. Although it's a blessing, its tendency to make you think the rest of the world is the same as what you see before you can blind you to the issues just beyond the horizon. The privilege and opportunities can mask what the real world is like and what serious problems are lying only 15 minutes away from my own little suburban paradise and bubble. While people complain about restaurant portions being too big, people are starving elsewhere. On my maternal side of my family, everyone lives in a small province within the Philippines. For them, hunger is a constant companion. Everytime I visit the Philippines, since I was a child, my mom would bring us to smaller provinces within the island and donate food and clothing. Doing something to better a community really stuck with me, especially since I was a child myself, yet I was feeding kids my own age. Seeing children starving to death forced me to come to terms with how the world worked at a very early age—how it was simply chance that gave me a privileged family but left the little girl in front of me constantly wondering where her next meal would come from. From then on, I've always had the desire to extend my hand to help the needy. As a sophomore, I started to volunteer at a local children's hospital and have been going there ever since. There, I get to play with truly amazing children that are rarely allowed outside the cold walls of the hospital. As a Junior, I returned to my roots and created a club at my high school dedicated to raising money for impoverished children in the Philippines. Though it was difficult to build a club from the ground up, I was able to earn enough money for my cause due to the help of my generous friends and family. I used social media as a tool to spread the word to others with the club's instagram account: @treatpeoplewithkindnesswhs. I also held bake sales during the year and even started a GoFundMe page in order to raise additional money and awareness to help with this initiative. This past summer I took that money and bought food, school supplies and toys for these underprivileged Filipino children. Not only has the experience made me extremely happy to be there, but it has made me learn how to not take things for granted. People say that life is short, and to a certain extent it is. In June I was in a serious car accident the day before my final exams started. The car I was driving in was completely destroyed. Since then, I've been going to physical therapists and chiropractors for my back & neck pain. Though I do feel physical pain, I now understand that the pain of not having enough to survive is so much deeper. Life is what you make of it and if you solely focus on the things that directly affect you, then you are truly making nothing. I've decided to live my life to the fullest. I don't care about how much money I have or the amount of possessions I have, but the positive impact I make on others matters. I just want to live life fully because life is full. Life is full.