For as long as I can remember
volunteering and helping others in any way I can has been a passion of mine.
This passion has never wavered, and I do it as often as I can. Throughout high
school I was granted the opportunity, through Project Potential, to
volunteer with Lexington Housing Community Development Corporation to help make
homes of the elderly more livable for them.
I always looked forward to being able to do this. However, my first
interaction with LHCDC came before I even entered high school. It came when
their work hit very close to home. My great-grandmother’s home was in a condition
not suitable for an elderly woman to live in. At all. With a roof that needed
to be replaced many years before and a bedroom ceiling now leaking, it broke our
family’s hearts for someone who had done so much for so many people not to be
able to afford to get a new roof. We were beyond grateful when LHCDC brought
students from their group work camp to fix my great-grandmother’s roof and ceiling.
At that age I knew this was a great thing; however, it was not until high school,
when I began to volunteer with LHCDC, that I understood the caliber of work that
they did for my great-grandmother and the weight that they had lifted off of my
family’s back.
As I have progressed though my
college years, my drive to help others has grown at an exponential rate, so much so
that I have decided that I want my career path to involve helping others in
some capacity. My drive is especially prevalent to helping those in the city that
I was born and raised in: Lexington, North Carolina. During my junior year of
college, having more life experience under my belt and truly understanding what
it meant to help others I decided that I wanted to do more for my community. I wasn’t
quite sure what I wanted to do. Then it hit me.... LHCDC! Remembering my volunteering experience
with them, what they had done for my great-grandmother and what they had done
for the community as a whole, I wanted to be involved and see how it all worked
on the inside. These thoughts pushed me to find a way in which I could get involved with the organization that I am so fond of.
This summer I was granted an internship opportunity with LHCDC and I couldn’t
be more excited!
On the first day, it was explained to me that during the duration of my internship I
will have the title of Co-Editorial Director for the student edition of the Empowerment
Magazine (make sure you pick up your copy), which is a magazine that has been
launched by LHCDC as a resource for the citizens of Davidson County. I will
also attend community events with the LHCDC team among other things. I have been afforded an
amazing opportunity with an amazing organization and
I am beyond excited for
all that I will learn and all of the experience that I will gain.
