Service has been embedded into my childhood from an early age. I went on my first ever mission trip the summer after 6th grade with a group of middle schoolers from my church, and I loved every second of it. We travelled to Green Bay for a week where I volunteered in a nursing home playing Bingo with residents and listening to the amazing stories they had to share about years past. I had such a great experience that the next summer I went to Duluth, and the summer after that to Little Rock, and a year later to Philadelphia. In each of these cities I became more and more invested in the service experience and I hold each of these trips near and dear to my heart. These early mission trips allowed me to understand what service is about and gave me the opportunity to see the direct impact it has on a person's life. Whether it was the smile of the man whose house we painted or the careening laughter from the kids we played tag with. I fell in love with these connections and all the little moments that add up to something so big and it has influenced who I am the values that I live out in my life today. 

After 4 years of summer mission trips I wanted something to do during the school year, so I turned to the volunteer opportunities at my high school. My favorite weekly volunteering was at Feed My Starving Children (FMSC). FMSC is a non-profit Christian organization that is dedicated to appeasing the hunger of children in third world countries. Volunteers hand-pack meals ("Manna Packs") that have been specifically formulated for malnourished children. Volunteers fill, seal, pack, and load these meals into pallets which are shipped to dozens of developing countries around the world. FMSC was fun because I was able to work with my friends while packaging these meals and singing along to the radio. We would volunteer every Wednesday after school for two hours and try and make a new record of how many bags we could fill each week. It was an easy and fun way to help better the lives of children thousands of miles away. It taught me that service comes in many forms, it can be direct or indirect. FMSC was perfect because as high school students we weren't able to travel to another country but we had an opportunity to help at a facility just down the street. 

Coming to college I felt the need to find a new way to give to my community. In addition to getting involved with Loyola 4 Chicago and Misericordia, I turned to the philanthropy of my sorority. Our national philanthropy is Ronald McDonald House Charities (RMHC), and our chapter has been lucky enough to be able to volunteer at the RMH associated with Lurie's Children's Hospital downtown.