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After all of these meaningful experiences related to service and helping others led me to the career path that I chose which was in the hospitality industry. I realized I wanted to go work in hotels as I want to help other people have amazing experiences and help them with what they need. I also wanted to go into a career where there would be lots of face to face interaction when it comes to helping people. This led me to choosing HPU as the place where I wanted to study as they also hold some of the same values that I do when it comes to community and service and also they have one of the best hospitality programs in the south. Community service and volunteering really shaped my views and led me to the career path that I chose.

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In 2022 I became involved with a local foundation in Charlotte, North Carolina called the Isabella Santos Foundation which raises money for rare pediatric cancer research, treatments, and families that have children with cancer. I worked with the foundation in 2022 as a summer intern on a fundraising team and in 2023 as a leader of one of those teams. I helped out with lots of their fundraising events and I help curate some of their giveback events and interacted with donors. All of these collective experiences instilled the importance of helping others and that I could make a positive impact on others through service and that I wanted to go into a career where I could interact with people and help them.

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After moving to North Carolina in 2018 I still worked at various places volunteering such as soup kitchens, the library, and organizations such as Samaritans Purse. However in 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic had foreclosed many of my volunteer and service opportunities. I had to continue to find new ways to make an impact in my community and I joined an organization along with my parents where we would make lasagna's at home during the pandemic and then bring them to people who couldn't afford food. I remember going all over the county we lived in and parts of Charlotte and bringing food to these people and it was an amazing experience that I still help out with today. Even when the world was shut down it mattered to still go out and help people.

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When I was 12 years old, I started volunteering at the Durham Public Library in the neighboring town of Durham, Connecticut. Here I would help patrons find what they were looking for whether it was books, movies, music and more. This was significant in that after this I wanted a job where I can help people and I wanted to go into a service oriented career and this experience encouraged me more to want to work in the hospitality field where I can continue to help visitors and guests. I also continued to work at the library near where I live in North Carolina.

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After helping out with the Community Round Up events in my hometown I decided to start accepting donations at my birthday parties since I wanted to help others and the day after my birthday parties I would bring the food to the soup kitchen and it would always make me happy to see that people were getting food they needed. I would later start helping out at the soup kitchen as I got older and this would instill the value of service in me and this was something that would impact my life and what I wanted to do down the road.

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When I was around 8 years old in my town where I lived at the time in Middlefield, Connecticut, there was a community food drive in our town where people would go to houses and collect canned goods and food and this was something that a lot of my friends had participated in this event and I thought that maybe I should give it a try. I loved it and I did it for many years after and this was one of the biggest impacts of my life when it comes to service.