Topic: Do you see yourself as a leader or one who is more comfortable working behind the scenes? Explain.
This is for the Jimmy Rane Foundation Scholarship.
Any criticism will be greatly appreciated, this is only a ROUGH DRAFT :)
I looked around the room, scanning the facial expressions of all the officers. It was hard to believe that just months ago, the "Green Team" had solely been a tentative but seemingly overly ambitious idea bouncing around in our heads. Now, thanks to our unrelenting efforts, we had managed to not just start a club-but start a "green" revolution. The Green Team had, after much persistence, convinced the school's administrative staff to allow the installment of recycling bins in every classroom. The Green Team had also, through massive campaigning, influenced the majority of students to ditch plastic bottles in favor of reusable water bottles. Thus, how could Green Team not take advantage of this new challenge and use it as a time to grow? "It's too difficult." Morgan solemnly stated, "We'd never pull it off in time." I frowned, disappointed at the lack of faith the officers were displaying in a club that we'd given birth to. However, their lack of faith only strengthened my desire to not only prove that the team could push through this- but that it could thrive through this. I cleared my throat. "I'll be in charge of the International Festival stand; I'll do it by myself if I have to." "However," I stated, anyone's help would be greatly appreciated. Slowly, Karli and Nahisha meekly raised their hands. "We will help," they shyly muttered in unison. Then Vanessa raised her hand. "I'll help with anything prior to the date but I'll be busy the day of." "That's fine!" I exclaimed. "Anything will help!" I smiled. I knew my team could be counted on.
The International Cultural Festival is an annual tradition at Thomas Jefferson High School. Each year, various school clubs and schoolteachers choose a country or theme to display at a stand in the festival. Each stand offers food, colorful displays, and even games, dances, and costumed people. It is a folkloric way to celebrate the fact that our school is an international magnet academy teeming with myriads of different ethnicities. Usually, stands take months of planning and careful preparation to perfect, but due to our busy schedules, the team had just gathered to discuss the upcoming International Festival less than two weeks before its actual date. The short amount of time left until the festival was what had caused the team to doubt its own capabilities. But I had never doubted.
I couldn't commence my preparation of the stand before I asked permission from our club sponsor, Mrs. Devars. I was terrified yet convinced that she would disagree with our hasty participation in one of the year's most anticipated events; I practiced what I would say to defend my case on my way to her classroom. When I finished informing Mrs. Devars of my proposition, I winced in anticipation of the kind but discouraging speech I was surely about to receive. Yet surprisingly, all she did was smile. "I knew you'd be the one to volunteer to do this." She said with a wise, knowing look on her face. "If it was anyone else, I'd be worried; but I know you can pull it off." I sighed in relief, knowing I'd just accomplished the most difficult task. "One more question," Mrs. Devars said. "What's your topic going to be?" "The benefits of all-natural and organic food," I proudly stated. I could tell by Mrs.Devars'face expression that she was not the least bit surprised.
The next ten days probably one of the busiest days of my life. But I didn't mind, as this stand was going to give me a much desired opportunity to radiate my preference of the organic lifestyle towards others. Everyone already called me the organic girl. Maybe soon, they'd be calling Jefferson "the organic school." This thought is what kept me going after five out of the six supermarkets I'd visited had refused to provide us with food donations, saying they were unable to do so under such short notice. Publix was the only place that had helped us with the little that they could. I humbly received a bag of organic blue corn chips and salsa from them, forever grateful for their small but meaningful donation. Finally, when my hope was beginning to waver, I decided to try asking for donations at one last place: Evo's, an all-natural fast food chain. When I spoke to the manager, I expected to receive the usual "I'm sorry we can't help you, you should've asked earlier" tirade. Instead, I received an order confirmation of a gargantuan platter of air-baked cage-free grain-fed chicken strips and sauces; the order would be ready the day of the festival! I rejoiced in the generosity of Evo's. Our main dish problem had been solved, now we just needed the rest of the food and displays. I put Vanessa in charge of the posters and and asked Karli to accompany me to the grocery store to purchase the rest of the food items. I purchased ingredients to make organic pasta with tomato sauce, organic chocolate-chip cookies, and organic sugar cookies. Karli was in charge of boiling the noodles and picking up the order of chicken strips the day of the festival and I was in charge of making the pasta sauce and the cookies. The night before the festival, I sacrificed sleep in favor of perfecting the tomato sauce and making sure the hundreds of cookies I baked were not only delectable but also visually appealing. This was more difficult than I'd expected as I had never made tomato sauce in my life and I had no recipe for it either. Also, I had to be exorbitantly careful with the cookies; if they baked for more than 8 minutes they would become overly crunchy when cooled, but if they baked less than 8 minutes they would fall apart. By the time the sun began to rise again, I was convinced I could pass any cookie-baking or sauce-creating test thrown at me.
The day of the festival was an exciting, energetic day. Karli, Nahisha, Vanessa, and I began to set up the stand as soon as the bell rang to signify that the school day was over. When Vanessa showed me the posters, I frowned. Our school's SGA (Student Government Association) was in charge of creating posters for any special occasion if requested. Vanessa's busy schedule hadn't given her the time to create the posters herself so she had assigned this imperative duty to SGA. SGA didn't have much time to create outstanding posters as they were busy with their own stand at the international festival as well. This resulted in couple of overly simplistic, undecorated posters. The stands surrounding us had various creative, beautiful posters; no one else had ordered theirs from SGA. I sighed. Any attempts at making new posters would be futile because of the time constraints; we were going to have to utilize what we had and make it work. Thus, I decided to go with a "minimalist theme" and make it seem like the undecorated posters on giant sheets of brown paper were created this way on purpose.
When the festival began, hundreds of students flocked to our stand, following the delicious smell of freshly prepared chicken strips. As they filled their plates with pasta, chicken, and cookies, I explained to them that organic and natural food was not only healthy, but delicious as well. I reached an indescribably high peak of joy every time I got to see one of my peers face expression's change from distrust and slight terror to happiness and amazement when they bit into a chicken strip or a cookie. I watched their misconception of organic food being bland and tasteless shatter with every slurp of noodles swallowed. Needless to say, our stand was a success. At the end of the night, Mrs. Devars came by our stand to congratulate us on our achievement. Mariana, a Green Team officer that hadn't been able to help with the stand, came by to agree with Ms. Devars. "It's all thanks to Arianna's initiative. If it wasn't for her leadership abilities, Green Team would've never had a stand." I smiled as I realized what I was: a leader.
This is for the Jimmy Rane Foundation Scholarship.
Any criticism will be greatly appreciated, this is only a ROUGH DRAFT :)
I looked around the room, scanning the facial expressions of all the officers. It was hard to believe that just months ago, the "Green Team" had solely been a tentative but seemingly overly ambitious idea bouncing around in our heads. Now, thanks to our unrelenting efforts, we had managed to not just start a club-but start a "green" revolution. The Green Team had, after much persistence, convinced the school's administrative staff to allow the installment of recycling bins in every classroom. The Green Team had also, through massive campaigning, influenced the majority of students to ditch plastic bottles in favor of reusable water bottles. Thus, how could Green Team not take advantage of this new challenge and use it as a time to grow? "It's too difficult." Morgan solemnly stated, "We'd never pull it off in time." I frowned, disappointed at the lack of faith the officers were displaying in a club that we'd given birth to. However, their lack of faith only strengthened my desire to not only prove that the team could push through this- but that it could thrive through this. I cleared my throat. "I'll be in charge of the International Festival stand; I'll do it by myself if I have to." "However," I stated, anyone's help would be greatly appreciated. Slowly, Karli and Nahisha meekly raised their hands. "We will help," they shyly muttered in unison. Then Vanessa raised her hand. "I'll help with anything prior to the date but I'll be busy the day of." "That's fine!" I exclaimed. "Anything will help!" I smiled. I knew my team could be counted on.
The International Cultural Festival is an annual tradition at Thomas Jefferson High School. Each year, various school clubs and schoolteachers choose a country or theme to display at a stand in the festival. Each stand offers food, colorful displays, and even games, dances, and costumed people. It is a folkloric way to celebrate the fact that our school is an international magnet academy teeming with myriads of different ethnicities. Usually, stands take months of planning and careful preparation to perfect, but due to our busy schedules, the team had just gathered to discuss the upcoming International Festival less than two weeks before its actual date. The short amount of time left until the festival was what had caused the team to doubt its own capabilities. But I had never doubted.
I couldn't commence my preparation of the stand before I asked permission from our club sponsor, Mrs. Devars. I was terrified yet convinced that she would disagree with our hasty participation in one of the year's most anticipated events; I practiced what I would say to defend my case on my way to her classroom. When I finished informing Mrs. Devars of my proposition, I winced in anticipation of the kind but discouraging speech I was surely about to receive. Yet surprisingly, all she did was smile. "I knew you'd be the one to volunteer to do this." She said with a wise, knowing look on her face. "If it was anyone else, I'd be worried; but I know you can pull it off." I sighed in relief, knowing I'd just accomplished the most difficult task. "One more question," Mrs. Devars said. "What's your topic going to be?" "The benefits of all-natural and organic food," I proudly stated. I could tell by Mrs.Devars'face expression that she was not the least bit surprised.
The next ten days probably one of the busiest days of my life. But I didn't mind, as this stand was going to give me a much desired opportunity to radiate my preference of the organic lifestyle towards others. Everyone already called me the organic girl. Maybe soon, they'd be calling Jefferson "the organic school." This thought is what kept me going after five out of the six supermarkets I'd visited had refused to provide us with food donations, saying they were unable to do so under such short notice. Publix was the only place that had helped us with the little that they could. I humbly received a bag of organic blue corn chips and salsa from them, forever grateful for their small but meaningful donation. Finally, when my hope was beginning to waver, I decided to try asking for donations at one last place: Evo's, an all-natural fast food chain. When I spoke to the manager, I expected to receive the usual "I'm sorry we can't help you, you should've asked earlier" tirade. Instead, I received an order confirmation of a gargantuan platter of air-baked cage-free grain-fed chicken strips and sauces; the order would be ready the day of the festival! I rejoiced in the generosity of Evo's. Our main dish problem had been solved, now we just needed the rest of the food and displays. I put Vanessa in charge of the posters and and asked Karli to accompany me to the grocery store to purchase the rest of the food items. I purchased ingredients to make organic pasta with tomato sauce, organic chocolate-chip cookies, and organic sugar cookies. Karli was in charge of boiling the noodles and picking up the order of chicken strips the day of the festival and I was in charge of making the pasta sauce and the cookies. The night before the festival, I sacrificed sleep in favor of perfecting the tomato sauce and making sure the hundreds of cookies I baked were not only delectable but also visually appealing. This was more difficult than I'd expected as I had never made tomato sauce in my life and I had no recipe for it either. Also, I had to be exorbitantly careful with the cookies; if they baked for more than 8 minutes they would become overly crunchy when cooled, but if they baked less than 8 minutes they would fall apart. By the time the sun began to rise again, I was convinced I could pass any cookie-baking or sauce-creating test thrown at me.
The day of the festival was an exciting, energetic day. Karli, Nahisha, Vanessa, and I began to set up the stand as soon as the bell rang to signify that the school day was over. When Vanessa showed me the posters, I frowned. Our school's SGA (Student Government Association) was in charge of creating posters for any special occasion if requested. Vanessa's busy schedule hadn't given her the time to create the posters herself so she had assigned this imperative duty to SGA. SGA didn't have much time to create outstanding posters as they were busy with their own stand at the international festival as well. This resulted in couple of overly simplistic, undecorated posters. The stands surrounding us had various creative, beautiful posters; no one else had ordered theirs from SGA. I sighed. Any attempts at making new posters would be futile because of the time constraints; we were going to have to utilize what we had and make it work. Thus, I decided to go with a "minimalist theme" and make it seem like the undecorated posters on giant sheets of brown paper were created this way on purpose.
When the festival began, hundreds of students flocked to our stand, following the delicious smell of freshly prepared chicken strips. As they filled their plates with pasta, chicken, and cookies, I explained to them that organic and natural food was not only healthy, but delicious as well. I reached an indescribably high peak of joy every time I got to see one of my peers face expression's change from distrust and slight terror to happiness and amazement when they bit into a chicken strip or a cookie. I watched their misconception of organic food being bland and tasteless shatter with every slurp of noodles swallowed. Needless to say, our stand was a success. At the end of the night, Mrs. Devars came by our stand to congratulate us on our achievement. Mariana, a Green Team officer that hadn't been able to help with the stand, came by to agree with Ms. Devars. "It's all thanks to Arianna's initiative. If it wasn't for her leadership abilities, Green Team would've never had a stand." I smiled as I realized what I was: a leader.
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