Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you. - Prompt for Common App Essay. My word count is a little under the 500 word limit. What do you guys think?
I sat down on the wooden desk, not a foot and a half away from the Medicins Sans Frontiers officers, and waited. By 9:50 am the other nine members took a seat.
In the previous meeting I spoke to the group about why we should donate to the Heifer Organization. The money we would raise would purchase a flock of chicks for a low-income family in an impoverished country. This project was unique; it revolved around sustainability.
Families in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa cannot provide nutritious food or potable water for their children because they don't have enough money, nor can they provide an education. Children are needed to help needed on the farm, or look after other family members. A low income is a result crops that won't sell in the market. Parent can't work in an office because they don't the applicable skills. They do not have a degree because their parents were in the dilemma as well. The issue was how to break the daunting cycle of poverty. The solution was to provide aid that had sustainable results.
Mallory, the president, then addressed the issue of how the group would raise money.
"We should make origami chickens."
The other nine members stared at me in confusion. My face turned red, and I began to elaborate.
"Typically at school, other service groups sell cards and include a cookie. Origami, especially one of a chicken, is unusual! The students and faculty would know what their money is purchasing." The nods and smiles returned, and my bashful grin disappeared. The math worked out perfectly, with one purchase of an origami chicken, one chick would be donated.
Each family would receive a flock of 20 chickens. Protein would digest in the stomachs of the family, and eggs could be sold at the market. The family's income would increase, and in time the children could be sent to school. The children, now young adults, would go to college. They would find a job, and not have to rely on farming as a means of income. The cycle would be broken.
The initial steps of the idea were tiny, but I think they were the most important strides of my life. It led to the first time that I talked at a high school assembly, my heart no longer pounds at the thought of public speaking. Most of all I learned that making the biggest impact isn't forcing someone to agree with your ideas. Instead, it's stressing their position of equilibrium, widening their perspective of the issues in the world, and letting them know they have the power to make a change.
After six hours of folding origami chicken, 1094 chickens were made. 54 families received a flock of 20 chicks. The students and faculty of the high school community shared the success. That night I wrote down in my journal, "It's just the beginning."
You have a good essay, but I feel like your ending is rather passive and abrupt. you just wrote "shared the success" that doesn't buy me over very much on how excited, obviously thrilled, and happy you were. Can you elaborate more on your feelings? You did in the middle/beginning of the essay, why not the end?
