When I started my project I wanted to design my project around one of my passions: Government. What I did not know is that it would grow to encompass three of my passions and the three aspects of the Darlington motto: Wisdom more than Knowledge, Service beyond Self, Honor above Everything.
During the first three months of the school year, I started by encouraging students at Darlington to engage in their community through civic service. I wanted to showcase how the wisdom aspect of Darlington’s motto can be applied in students' lives. I began by reviving the Young Democrats Club and trying to foster a place of healthy political environment on campus during a time of intense political conflict. Additionally, I hosted a trip to Rome City Hall, wherein we learned about the upcoming elections and even got to look at what the ballots would look like and referendums that were up to debate.
For the next part of my project, I leaned into the motto’s dedication to service by running several supply drives and by utilizing the members of the club I run: Hugs and Threads. For my birthday, I organized a supply drive for the Etowah Valley Humane Society, where we brought supplies such as toys, deworming medication, flea medication, and kennels. Hugs and Threads worked throughout the year sewing bears to donate to organizations such as Advocates for Children, a nonprofit that provides children with legal assistance and temporary housing.
Additionally, Hugs and Threads collectively sewed 50 bears for Santa for Seniors, a program where seniors in Floyd County submit a list of things that they want or need for Christmas and students at Darlington make a group effort to supply them, with each individual getting a bear and a small message wishing them a Merry Christmas. Also on Christmas I participated in the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program, where I bought the presents for six children and elders to ensure that their Christmas was the best that it could be. Through this journey with service, I learned more about myself than I thought I would. I learned that I loved philanthropy and had a real passion for helping those in need, and plan to continue doing that in the future.
To finish out the year, I decided to highlight the final message of Darlington motto: honor. By partnering with the Green Team, I hope to encourage others to honor our earth by cleaning up after ourselves. I plan to organize events such as a trash pickup on campus so that we can maintain a healthy campus environment. By doing this, I hope to make a visible influence, showing that the Darlington Community's commitment to honor extends beyond its walls.
As I am finishing up my project, I am seeing just how far I’ve come from the beginning of the year. I started with just one idea and only grew from there. Senior Ventures has changed my idea of what a project really is, and has helped me find myself in the process. I was able to learn my strengths and weaknesses, my passions and my dislikes, but most importantly I was able to learn more about the community that I grew up in, and give back to it in any way that I can.
Senior Ventures is a year-long academic program built on a framework of leadership, innovation and community engagement. Through a proven self-guided exploratory process, seniors whose proposals are selected for this program work independently to develop a project that’s interdisciplinary in scope and is connective, performance-based, investigative, or entrepreneurial. Click here to learn more.
