Boulder, Colorado I was born and raised in Boulder, Colorado, a place I am proud to call my home. An outdoor, ‘granola’ oasis nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Boulder has ingrained in me an appreciation for the great outdoors and all that they have to offer. The city raises its children as environmentalists before they can begin to understand the importance of protecting our natural earth. High school was a time for me to explore my passions and thus, in the fall of my sophomore year, when a classmate asked if I would come to her garden club meeting after school because she needed a few extra hands to complete a project, I said yes. I was only a volunteer on that first day, but by the end of my senior year I had become co-president of the club. We met each Friday after school to tend to the garden we had built on the grounds of my high school. In the winter we learned about plant biology and various sustainability topics, maintained our small greenhouse, did fundraisers, and planned out our garden for the upcoming season of planting. The garden club introduced me to topics that I now care deeply about, like sustainable agriculture, and made sure I got time outside each week caring for and learning about the natural environment around me.
Garden club on a Friday afternoon, standing in our small garden plot which looks out on the Rocky Mountains.
Growing up in Boulder taught me many other lessons beyond the development of my environmental awareness, though, some of which were not quite so easy to swallow. And that’s just it: living in Boulder was... easy. For a girl of my demographic make-up with successful and supportive parents, life in Boulder was farmer’s market trips and piano lessons and weekend bike rides along the creek path. Summer camp and father-daughter hikes and neighborhood barbecues. Outside the time I spent in school, it was leisurely, and even then, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to a school that was competitive and challenging enough that I learned to work hard and soak up as much education as I could. It wasn’t until I came to Santa Clara University that I realized how privileged I was to live the life I had in Boulder. It turns out that living with such leisure and comfort is a costly endeavor. The new-age 'hippie' lifestyle is only available to a select few who have extensive privileges—access to education, social services, employment opportunities, expendable income, etc. This population has the privilege of choice; they can choose between dinner out or leftovers, organic food or conventional, public education or private, and so on. It so happens that Boulder is a place largely made up of that choice-rich population, and I am immensely grateful to have had the happy childhood that I did. But when I moved out of state, I was humbled by the realization that I had not known my experience wasn't an accurate depiction of so-called 'middle-class' life in the United States. Talk about the Boulder bubble.
Cold Spring Harbor, New York The relationships I have with my family have always been the most important in my life. Although I have no siblings, I am lucky to have a large extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and an array of cousins with varying degrees of separation. My family would not be so large, however, had it not been splintered by divorce in many places, including my parents' own when I was three years old. My dad moved to Cold Spring Harbor, New York—his hometown—for a few years after the divorce. Since then, I have been traveling to Cold Spring Harbor each summer to visit my family.
My grandmother, cousins, and I (center) at the dinner table over the winter holidays.
Cold Spring Harbor is a small town on the north shore of Long Island about an hour outside of Manhattan, and my time there fit the stereotype of East Coast prep quite well. I spent my days swimming and sailing in the harbor, taking tennis lessons with my cousins, and getting to know my grandparents and their friends at country-club dinners. I learned to love it (although—or maybe because—it has a privileged population similar to Boulder) and as I grew up, it became home to me, too. I dreamt of going to college in New York or Boston with hopes that it would serve as a one-way ticket for me to start the next part of my life near my family in a place I loved. (I ended up in California, but that's another story). In February of my freshman year at Santa Clara University, I got an unexpected phone call: My mom told me that my dad had been diagnosed with Stage IV cancer, and it wasn't good. Nine months later I flew home to Colorado and New York for his memorial services. But despite the terrible circumstances, I felt as at home as I always had in both places knowing that my family, though splintered once again, was there with me—growing back stronger and with more love to share than ever before.
Santa Clara University - Santa Clara, California
I knew I wanted to be an Orientation Leader from the second I stepped onto campus in July 2016. It was a goal I worked toward my entire freshman year at Santa Clara University, and though I tried several clubs and applied to other leadership positions, that was the one that I always strove towards the most. The Orientation team made Santa Clara University home for me. To have a diverse team of people to share my challenges, my joy, and my passion for helping others with created a feeling of home in a place I never thought would truly be one.
The 2018 Orientation Leadership Team before giving a welcome presentation to new students.
Although it may seem to be just an average summer job, working as an Orientation Leader was the most transformative experience I had at Santa Clara. By working on a close team, I developed accountability skills and learned about my strengths and weaknesses as a teammate. By helping students and hearing stories from people different than myself, I learned about the challenges and values people experience in their own homes—places vastly different that Boulder or Cold Spring Harbor. My passion for education, learning, and serving others was fueled by my time as an Orientation Leader, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work for a program I love for my first two years here.
On a hike in Boulder.
I learned what it meant to make my own happiness at Santa Clara. I certainly have a long way to go on my personal journey of discerning my vocation, but I’ve learned lessons from each of my homes that have guided me to where I am today and to the Global Social Benefit Fellowship. Boulder taught me about gratitude and humility: I learned what it meant to be comfortable, to be safe, to explore, and to be thankful for the opportunities I have been granted. New York taught me about love: My family serves as a constant reminder of the influence that love and support can have to create change. This lesson—to love through loss, to support others—has inspired me to direct my passions and ambition towards creating opportunities of love and support for the people who need it most. Santa Clara taught me about passion: Although I may not know exactly where my studies will take me, I know that I love to learn and, in particular, I have the most to learn from people different from myself. Through a multitude of instances and experiences, Santa Clara has instilled in me the importance of listening to others with compassion in order to learn and to grow.
April and I having a dance-off at the Don Bosco Oratory in the Muhanga, Rwanda.
Creating Homes When my time with the Orientation program ended, I felt like I had to start over to find my home at Santa Clara. In the fall of my junior year, most of my friends were studying abroad, I had moved off-campus for the first time with new roommates, and the organization that helped define me while at SCU was gone. Santa Clara became a completely different school for me, and I was searching for a way to make a place for myself in it once again. After spending some time in Rwanda last summer on an immersion trip and reflecting on the lessons I’ve learned from each of my homes, the Global Social Benefit Fellowship appeared to me at the perfect time. My goal is to learn more about the world—about the places other people call home—and to learn from social enterprises that are working to make people’s lives better. Above all, I strive to share the gratitude, love, and passions I have gained from my own homes so that this planet may become a just, humane, and sustainable home for all.