When I was a young child, I remember waking up before the sun was fully in the sky to drive to a local elementary school with my mother. While there, we would stand in line for what seemed to me to be hours upon hours. When we finally got to the front, my mother would do what she had come to do and I would get a sticker. Each year, the sticker said the same phrase, “I voted”. Even at 6 years old, I knew that voting, civic engagement, was a duty.
I also remember, as a child, getting dressed up and going into parts of the city where I’m from. My parents and brothers would be there too, dressed just as nicely. We would go into the house of a stranger that my mother always seemed to know to deliver a basket. Each year, the basket had a turkey, a box of stuffing, a jar of gravy, a can of cranberry sauce, and, perhaps, something more. Lastly, I recall rummaging through our closets at home to find coats that I had outgrown. .A cleaners in my home town takes coat donations every year for the less fortunate, which they dry clean before donating. At my school, I can recall covering a Christmas tree every tear with gloves and mittens for the Christmas Mother’s Mitten Tree.
Serving the community and doing my duty as a citizen as always been a part of my life.
Through the LEAD Office, I was able to continue serving with 6th graders at Hampton Middle School and program participants from the Jewish Community Center.