An Event that Defined Me

In the summer of 2005, my family decided to take a trip to India for the 50^th anniversary of my grandparents’ marriage. Because I am of Indian heritage, it was my third of four visits to the country. We visited Rajasthan, “The Land of the Kings”, in western India visiting many forts and palaces of the 18^th century.  We also held an enormous anniversary party for my grandparents and spent a great amount of time with many family members from Indiana, Louisiana, and many more, that had come to India just for the occasion. As a young girl in the fifth grade from Pennsylvania, I enjoyed feeding the monkeys and cows and riding in the Indian taxi, known as Rickshaw, several times around the city of Vadodara. I also had a great time when the whole family rented a large bus, which seated about ­­­50 people, and drove up to Mount Abu, is the highest peak in the Aravalli Range of Rajasthan. After three weeks of vacationing my father and brother traveled back to the United States, which my mother and I stayed with some close relatives in Vadodara. Unfortunately, July is monsoon season in India. Due to bad gutters, many areas of the country started to flood, including the city that we were in. My older cousin tried to take his son and I to the movie theater, but the water was so high that we had to turn around and come home. We were stuck in the house for several days because it was too unsafe to go outside. We tried to make the best of our situation, so we put on our raincoats and climbed up several flights of stairs to the roof. We walked outside and the wind would blow our small bodies as we danced in the rain and enjoyed each other’s company. However, as I looked down from over the terrace, I saw several people’s houses destroyed. I noticed that people need to swim across a huge lake of water just to get some milk for their families. Cars and bikes were destroyed, and people had no form of transportation. The next day, my mother and I set off with my aunt and uncle to help some people in tought sitatutions due to the storm. We bought  a generous supply of Parle-G cookie packages and drove to one of the main roads in the city. As I rolled my window down to hand some to some small impoverished children, a huge crowd started to form around the car. I was shocked as people ran over begging for just one cookie. They wailed their arms and started to put them through the open window, desperate for a small amount of food. My mother told me to roll my window up and leave open only a small crack big enough to fit a package. We soon ran out of our supply of food and had to drive away from a crowd of disappointed families without any food or shelter.

Woodrow Wilson once said, "You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and to impoverish yourself if you forget the errand." Although this event frightened me as a child, I learned a valuable lesson that changed my life forever. This trip altered my view of society and influenced me to change my habits. It inspired me to start volunteering and help the world and my small community to make a difference. The next year, I joined the Builders Club. We raised many funds for difference associations and causes, such as St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, and Juvenile Arthritis. I also participated in the Student Council and volunteered and many school events. As I progressed to high school, I became involved in the Key Club, which broadened my service to more areas of the community. As president, I developed tutoring programs for students at my school, helped with Relay For Life, the Walk for Alzheimer’s, and countless other events. I was also nominated to attend the Hugh O’Brian Leadership Conference, where I met kids my age who were interested in service as well. Here, I packed food at the Global Food Network for people starving in many parts of the world. Currently, I teach young children to read write and speak my native language, Gujarati, at a Hindu temple nearby. I love being an active member in my community.  I am proud to say that from May 2010 to May 2011 I performed 177 hours of community service received a presidential letter acknowledging this accomplishment.